wEwJvA&iWA' 


oto 


l.il  ; K>.\K  Y 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


i       OK 


Mrs.  SARAH  P.  WALSWORTH. 

kt'u'i-i't\f  October,  1894. 
tsions  No.  jr/      .      CA/ss  M). 


THE   BOOK-HUNTER 

etc 


THE  BOOK-HUNTER 


etc 


BY    JOHN     HILL     BURTON 


&trtjftfonal  Notes 


BY  RICHARD  GRANT  WHITE 


NEW   YORK 

SHELDON    AND   COMPANY   335  BROADWAY 
1863 


-V 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  18G2,  by 

SHELDON  AND  COMPANY, 

in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  Southern  District  of 
Kew  York. 


RIVERSIDE,  CAMBRIDGE: 
PRINTED  BY  H.  O.  HOUGH  TON. 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

TO   THIS  EDITION. 

ROM'-tbe. beginning  books  have  been 
reckoned  almost  among  the  necessa 
ries  of  life  by  the  people  of  this  coun 
try.  Of  later  years  they  have  become 
objects  of  taste  and  luxury,  and  of  collection  for 
the  purpose  of  special  study.  This  disposition  to 
possess  books  other  than  standard  works  of  refer 
ence  and  the  miscellaneous  literature  of  the  day 
is  increasing  rapidly  among  us  ;  and  the  desire  is 
very  generally  accompanied,  at  least  in  a  certain 
degree,  by  the  means  for  its  gratification.  To  all 
those  who  have  this  taste,  and  to  many  who  have  it 
not,  the  following  desultory  dissertation  on  books, 
book-collecting,  and  book-collectors,  cannot  fail  to 
be  welcome  for  its  always  interesting,  often  service 
able,  and  sometimes  amusing,  information.  Its  in 
fluence  upon  those  whose  brains  are  touched  with 
bibliomania  cannot  fail  to  be  good  ;  for  it  deals 
firmly,  though  gently,  with  their  cherished  folly, 
b 


vi  PREFATORY  NOTE. 

and  leads  them  away  from  that  petty  dilettante- 
ism  into  which  a  love  of  rare  and  beautiful  books 
is  apt  to  fall,  toward  a  manly  and  sensible  in 
dulgence  of  their  inclination.  The  true  book-lover 
will  delight  in  the  outside  as  well  as  the  inside  of 
his  treasures  ;  and  he  is  more  than  mortal,  if  he 
does  not  glory  a  little  in  their  accumulation,  "  for 
to  have  meny  is  a  plesaunt  thynge  ;  "  but  he  has 
passed  a  perilous  line  whose  books  have  become  to 
him  other  than  the  means  and  signs  of  culture,  or 
the  loved  companions  of  his  solitude.  Against 
that  danger  there  is  in  the  following  pages  many 
a  wholesome  warning;. 

O 

It  must  be  confessed,  however,  that  there '  is 
much  in  this  book  which,  though  good  in  itself, 
is  very  wide  of  its  main  purpose.  Not  to  speak 
of  previous  pages,  the  connection  of  the  chapters 
upon  John  Spalding  and  Robert  Wodrow  with  a 
dissertation  upon  bibliomania  is  of  the  slender 
est  ;  while  the  thread  which  served  as  the  author's 
clue  in  passing  to  the  curious  and  interesting  ac 
counts  of  the  Early  Northern  Saints  and  the 
Early  British  Church  Architecture  is  to  my  eye 
quite  invisible.  The  "  etc."  of  the  title-page 
must  be  accepted  in  its  widest  meaning.  "  The 
Book-Hunter  and  other  things  "  is  certainly  a 
title  broad  enough  to  shelter  any  and  all  of  the 


PREFATORY  NOTE.  vft 

topics  that  have  been  treated  under  it ;  for  in  fact 
it  stops  only  just  short  of  de  omnibus  rebus  et 
quibusdam  aliis.  The  author,  conscious  of  this, 
half  apologizes  for  making  the  book  so  large  and 
so  discursive  ;  and  if  he  had  reason,  how  much 
more  have  I,  who  have  added  to  its  length  and 
even  to  its  discursiveness  !  But  as  he  had  con 
cerned  himself  not  a  little  with  the  social  and 
literary  condition  of  this  country,  and  had  almost 
always  led  his  reader  to  false  conclusions,  it  was 
thought  that  in  an  edition  intended  for  the  United 
States  these  should  be  corrected.  The  doing  of 
this  naturally  led  to  the  doing  of  a  little  more  ; 
the  occupation  beguiled  hours  of  suffering  when 
more  serious  and  exacting  duties  could  not  be  at 
tended  to  ;  and  the  result  may  perhaps  be  deemed 
not  entirely  superfluous,  except  by  that  sort  of 
men  who  would  regard  it  as  the  greatest  glory  of 
the  compilers  of  the  Justinian  Pandects  that  they 
reduced  three  millions  of  lines  in  the  works  of 
their  predecessors  to  one  hundred  and  fifty  thou 
sand.  An  excellent  work,  truly  ;  and  they  who  did 
it,  public  benefactors,  and  worthy  of  all  the  praise 
which  their  record  of  the  feat  silently  solicited 
and  artfully  won.  Yet  in  the  interests  of  us  all 
there  must  be  some  limit  to  the  spare  diet  of  words 
upon  which  some  folk  would  have  literature  exist ; 


viii  PREFATORY  NOTE. 

else,  being  reduced  to  its  one  straw,  it  will  cease 
from  off  the  earth,  and  the  functions  of  author 
and  reader  will  cease  together  with  it :  —  a  catas 
trophe  sufficiently  remote,  however,  to  allow  our 
solicitude  to  slumber.  And  had  I  possessed  the 
needful  information  before  the  body  of  the  book 
was  put  in  type,  instead  of  one  less,  I  should  have 
written  one  more  note,  to  say  that  among  the 
Mighty  Book-Hunters  of  whom  the  author  gives 
such  lively  sketches,  Thomas  Papaverius,  the  most 
interesting  of  them  all,  is  intended  for  Thomas  De 
Quincey ;  who,  indeed,  seems  rather  to  have  been 
a  robber,  a  ravisher,  and  a  destroyer  of  books  than 
a  collector  or  even  a  hunter  of  them,  —  a  very 
Ishmaelite,  against  whom,  in  spite  of  what  he  was 
and  what  he  wrote,  all  book-lovers  had  common 
cause.  He  on  the  one  side  and  the  Irish  Vampire 
on  the  other  furnish  extreme  examples  of  what 
the  book-hunter  should  not  be.  None  of  the  other 
sketches  have  yet  been  publicly  identified  by  the 
British  critics. 

For  the  Index  which  adds  value  to  this  edition 
the  reader  is  indebted  to  F.  F.  HEARD,  Esq.,  of 
the  Boston  Bar.  The  additional  notes  are  inclosed 
in  brackets,  and  signed  with  the  last  initial  of  their 
writer.  R.  G.  W. 


A  D  VER  TISEMENT. 


HIS  book  owes  its  existence  to  a 
concurrence  of  accidents.  The 
Author  had  the  honor  of  con 
tributing  to  Blackwood's  Magazine  some 
sketches  of  the  ways  of  book-collectors, 
scholars,  literary  investigators,  desultory 
readers,  and  other  persons  whose  pursuits 
revolve  round  books  and  literature.  Some 
friendly  criticisms  having  induced  him  to 
reflect  on  what  he  had  written,  he  saw,  as 
will  generally  happen  in  such  cases,  that 
were  he  to  go  over  the  ground  again,  he 
would  find  much  that  he  would  desire  to 
alter,  and  many  things  that  might  be 
added.  He  therefore  resolved  to  recast 
the  whole  and  expand  it  to  the  compass 


X  ADVERTISEMENT. 

of  a  thin  volume.  The  thin  volume,  how 
ever,  fattened  as  it  approached  maturity, 
until  it  reached  the  respectable  dimensions 
in  which  it  now  awaits  the  appreciation 
of  any  reader  who  may  think  it  worthy 
of  his  attention. 


CONTENTS. 


$art  E.—  mis  Nature. 

INTRODUCTORY            1 

A    VISION    OF    MIGHTY   BOOK-HUNTERS  .  .  .12 

REMINISCENCES 56 

CLASSIFICATION 61 

THE   PROWLER   AND   THE   AUCTION-HAUNTER             .  82 

33art  KK.  —  ?^fs  if  unctions. 

THE    HOBBY              ........  96 

THE    DESULTORY   READER,    OR    BOHEMIAN   OF  LITER 
ATURE    104 

THE    COLLECTOR    AND    THE    SCHOLAR  .  .  .112 

THE   GLEANER   AND   HIS   HARVEST              .           .           .  122 

PRETENDERS 162 

HIS   ACHIEVEMENTS  IN   THE  CREATION    OF  LIBRARIES  171 

THE   PRESERVATION   OF    LITERATURE        .            .            .  215 

LIBRARIANS  234 


xii  CONTENTS. 


CLUBS   IN   GENERAL       .....  ,  240 

THE    STRUCTURE    OF    THE    BOOK-CLUBS     .  .  .  247 

THE    ROXBURGHE    CLUB  ......  261 

SOME   BOOK-CLUB   MEN      ......  280 

$att  *17.—  Bookclub   3Lfterature. 

GENERALITIES         ........  304 

JOHN   SPALDING  .......  323 

ROBERT    WODROW  .......  331 

THE    EARLY  NORTHERN    SAINTS          ....  346 

SERMONS   IN   STONES     .  .  394 


THE    BOOK-HUNTER. 


PART  I.  —  HIS  NATURE. 

Jntroimctorg. 

HE  Title  under  which  the  discursive- 
contents  of  the  following  pages  are 
ranged,  has  no  better  justification 
than  that  it  suited  myself.  I  hope 
it  may  also  suit  the  reader.  If  they 
laid  any  claim  to  a  scientific  character,  or  professed 
to  contain  an  exposition  of  any  established  depart 
ment  of  knowledge,  it  might  have  been  their  privi 
lege  to  appear  under  a  title  of  Greek  derivation, 
with  all  the  dignities  and  immunities  conceded  by 
immemorial  deference  to  this  stamp  of  scientific 
rank.  I  not  only,  however,  consider  my  own  trifles 
unworthy  of  such  a  dignity,  but  am  inclined  to  strip 
it  from  other  productions  which  might  appear  to 
have  a  more  appropriate  claim  to  it.  No  doubt,  the 
ductile  inflections  and  wonderful  facilities  for  de 
composition  and  reconstruction  make  Greek  an  ex 
cellent  vehicle  of  scientific  precision,  and  the  use  of 
1 


2  HIS  NATURE. 

a  dead  language  saves  your  nomenclature  from  be 
ing  confounded  with  your  common  talk.  The  use 
of  a  Greek  derivative  gives  notice  that  you  are 
scientific.  If  you  speak  of  an  acanthopterygian,  it 
is  plain  that  you  are  not  discussing  perch  in  refer 
ence  to  its  culinary  merits  ;  and  if  you  make  an 
allusion  to  monomyarian  malacology,  it  will  not 
naturally  be  supposed  to  have  reference  to  the  cook 
ing  of  oyster-sauce. 

Like  many  other  meritorious  things,  however, 
Greek  nomenclature  is  much  abused.  The  very 
reverence  it  is  held  in  —  the  strong  disinclination 
on  the  part  of  the  public  to  question  the  accuracy 
of  anything  stated  under  the  shadow  of  a  Greek 
name,  or  to  doubt  the  infallibility  of  the  man  who 
,uses  it  —  makes  this  kind  of  nomenclature  the  fre 
quent  protector  of  fallacies  and  quackeries.  It  is 
an  instrument  for  silencing  inquiry  and  handing 
over  the  judgment  to  implicit  belief.  Get  the  pas 
sive  student  once  into  palteozoology,  and  he  takes 
your  other  hard  names  —  your  ichthyodorulite,  tro- 
gontherium,  lepidodendron,  and  bothrodendron  — 
for  granted,  contemplating  them,  indeed,  with  a  kind 
of  religious  awe  or  devotional  reverence.  If  it  be  a 
question  whether  a  term  is  categorematic,  or  is  of  a 
quite  opposite  description,  and  ought  to  be  described 
as  simcategorematic,  one  may  take  up  a  very  abso 
lute  positive  position  without  finding  many  people 
prepared  to  assail  it. 

Antiquarianism,  which  used  to  be  an  easy-going, 
slipshod  sort  of  pursuit,  has  sought  this  all-powerful 


INTRODUCTORY.  3 

protection  and  called  itself  Archeology.  An  ob 
literated  manuscript  written  over  again  is  called  a 
palimpsest,  and  the  man  who  can  restore  and  read 
it  a  paleographist.  The  great  erect  stone  on  the 
moor,  which  has  hitherto  defied  all  learning  to  find 
the  faintest  trace  of  the  age  in  which  it  was  erected, 
its  purpose,  or  the  people  who  placed  it  there,  seems, 
as  it  were,  to  be  rescued  from  the  heathen  darkness 
in  which  it  has  dwelt,  and  to  be  admitted  within 
the  community  of  scientific  truth,  by  being  chris 
tened  a  monolith.  If  there  be  any  remains  of  sculp 
ture  on  the  stone,  it  becomes  a  lythoglyph  or  a 
hieroglyph ;  and  if  the  nature  and  end  of  this  sculp 
ture  be  quite  incomprehensible  to  the  adepts,  they 
may  term  it  a  cryptoglyph,  and  thus  dignify,  by 
a  sort  of  title  of  honor,  the  absoluteness  of  their 
ignorance.  It  were  a  pity  if  any  more  ingenious 
man  should  afterwards  find  a  key  to  the  mystery, 
and  destroy  the  significance  of  the  established  no 
menclature. 

The  venders  of  quack  medicines  and  cosmetics 
are  aware  of  the  power  of  Greek  nomenclature,  and 
apparently  subsidize  scholars  of  some  kind  or  other 
to  supply  them  with  the  article.  A  sort  of  shaving 
soap  used  frequently  to  be  advertised  under  a  title 
which  was  as  complexly  adjusted  a  piece  of  mosaic 
work  as  the  geologists  or  the  conchologists  ever 
turned  out.  But  perhaps  the  confidence  in  the 
protective  power  of  Greek  designations  has  just  at 
this  moment  reached  its  climax,  in  an  attempt  to 
save  thieves  from  punishment  by  calling  them  klep 
tomaniacs. 


4  HIS  NATURE. 

It  is  possible  that,  were  I  to  attempt  to  dignify 
the  class  of  men  to  whom  the  following  sketches 
are  devoted  by  an  appropriate  scientific  title,  a 
difficulty  would  start  up  at  the  very  beginning. 
As  the  reader  will  perhaps  see,  from  the  tenor  of 
my  discourse,  I  would  find  it  difficult  to  say  whether 
I  should  give  them  a  good  name  or  a  bad — to  speak  , 
more  scientifically,  and  of  course  more  clearly, 
whether  I  should  characterize  them  by  a  predicate 
eulogistic,  or  a  predicate  dyslogistic.  On  the  whole, 
I  am  content  with  my  first  idea,  and  shall  stick  to 
the  title  of  "  The  Book-Hunter."1 

Few  wiser  things  have  ever  been  said  than  that 
remark  of  Byron's,  that  "  man  is  an  unfortunate 
fellow,  and  ever  will  be."  Perhaps  the  originality 
of  the  fundamental  idea  it  expresses  may  be  ques 
tioned,  on  the  ground  that  the  same  warning  has  been 
enounced  in  far  more  solemn  language,  and  from 

1  To  afford  the  reader,  however,  an  opportunity  of  noting  at  a 
glance  the  appropriate  learned  terms  applicable  to  the  different 
sets  of  persons  who  meddle  with  books,  I  subjoin  the  following 
definitions,  as  rendered  in  D'Israeli's  Curiosities,  from  the  Chasse 
aux  Bibliographes  et  Antiquaires  mal  advises  of  Jean  Joseph 
Hive: 

"  A  bibliognoste,  from  the  Greek,  is  one  knowing  in  title-pages 
and  colophons,  and  in  editions  ;  the  place  and  year  when  printed  ; 
the  presses  whence  issued  ;  and  all  the  minutia3  of  a  book."  — 
"  A  bibliographe  is  a  describer  of  books  and  other  literary  ar 
rangements."  —  "A  bibliomane  is  an  indiscriminate  accumula 
tor,  who  blunders  faster  than  he  buys,  cock-brained  and  purse- 
heavy."  —  "A  bibliophile,  the  lover  of  books,  is  the  only  one  in 
the  class  who  appears  to  read  them  for  his  own  pleasure."  — 
"  A  bibliotaphe  buries  his  books,  by  keeping  them  under  lock, 
or  framing  them  in  glass  cases." 


INTRODUCTORY.  5 

a  far  more  august  authority.  But  there  is  origi 
nality  in  the  vulgar,  everyday-world  way  of  putting 
the  idea ;  and  this  makes  it  suit  the  present  purpose-, 
in  which,  a  human  frailty  having  to  be  dealt  with, 
there  is  no  intention  to  be  either  devout  or  phil 
osophical  about  it,  but  to  treat  it  in  a  thoroughly 
worldly  and  practical  tone,  and  in  this  temper  to 
judge  of  its  place  among  the  defects  and  ills  to 
which  flesh  is  heir.  It  were  better,  perhaps,  if  we 
human  creatures  sometimes  did  this,  and  discussed 
our  common  frailties  as  each  himself  partaking  of 
them,  than  that  we  should  mount,  as  we  are  so  apt 
to  do,  into  the  clouds  of  theology  or  of  ethics,  ac 
cording  as  our  temperament  and  training  are  of 
the  serious  or  of  the  intellectual  order.  True, 
there  are  many  of  our  brethren  violently  ready  to 
proclaim  themselves  frail  mortals,  miserable  sinners, 
and  no  better,  in  theological  phraseology,  than  the 
greatest  of  criminals.  But  such  has  been  my  own 
unfortunate  experience  in  life,  that  whenever  I  find 
a  man  coming  forward  with  these  self-denunciations 
on  his  lips,  I  am  prepared  for  an  exhibition  of 
intolerance,  spiritual  pride,  and  envy,  hatred,  mal 
ice,  and  all  uncharitableness,  towards  any  poor  fel 
low-creature  who  has  floundered  a  little  out  of  the 
straight  path,  and,  being  all  too  conscious  of  his 
errors,  is  not  prepared  to  proclaim  them  in  those 
broad  emphatic  terms  which  come  so  readily  to 
the  lips  of  the  censors,  who  at  heart  believe  them 
selves  spotless, — just  as  complaints  about  poverty, 
and  inability  to  buy  this  and  that,  come  from 


6  HIS   NATURE. 

the  fat  lips  of  the  millionnaire,  when  he  shows  you 
his  gallery  of  pictures,  his  stud,  and  his  forcing- 
frames. 

No ;  it  is  hard  to  choose  between  the  two.  The 
man  who  has  no  defect  or  crack  in  his  character, — 
no  tinge  of  even  the  minor  immoralities,  —  no  fan 
tastic  humor,  carrying  him  sometimes  off  his  feet, 
—  no  preposterous  hobby  —  such  a  man,  walking 
straight  along  the  surface  of  this  world  in  the  arc 
of  a  circle,  is  a  very  dangerous  character,  no  doubt ; 
of  such  all  children,  dogs,  simpletons,  and  other 
creatures  that  have  the  instinct  of  the  odious  in 
their  nature,  feel  an  innate  loathing.  And  yet  it 
is  questionable  if  your  perfectionized  Sir  Charles 
Grandison  is  quite  so  dangerous  a  character  as  your 
"  miserable  sinner,"  vociferously  conscious  that  he 
is  the  frailest  of  the  frail,  and  that  he  can  do  no 
good  thing  of  himself.  And  indeed,  in  practice, 
the  external  symptoms  of  these  two  characteristics 
have  been  known  so  to  alternate  in  one  disposition 
as  to  render  it  evident  that  each  is  but  the  same 
moral  nature  under  a  different  external  aspect, — 
the  mask,  cowl,  varnish,  crust,  or  whatever  you 
like  to  call  it,  having  been  adapted  to  the  external 
conditions  of  the  man,  —  that  is,  to  the  society  he 
mixes  in,  the  set  he  belongs  to,  the  habits  of  the 
age,  and  the  way  in  which  he  proposes  to  get  on 
in  life.  It  is  when  the  occasion  arises  for  the 
mask  being  thrown  aside,  or  when  the  internal 
passions  burst  like  a  volcano  through  the  crust, 
that  terrible  events  take  place,  and  the  world 


INTRODUCTORY.  7 

throbs  with  the  excitement  of  some  wonderful  crim 
inal  trial.1 

1  It  has  often  been  observed  that  it  is  among  the  Society  of 
Friends,  who  keep  so  tight  a  rein  on  the  passions  and  propensi 
ties,  that  these  make  the  most  terrible  work  when  they  break 
loose.  De  Quincey,  in  one  of  his  essays  on  his  contemporaries, 
giving  a  sketch  of  a  man  of  great  genius  and  high  scholarship, 
whose  life  was  early  clouded  by  insanity,  gives  some  curious 
statements  about  the  effects  of  the  system  of  rigid  restraint  ex 
ercised  by  the  Society  of  Friends,  which  I  am  not  prepared 
either  to  support  or  contradict.  After  describing  the  system  of 
restraint  itself,  he  says,  "  This  is  known,  but  it  is  not  equally 
known  that  this  unnatural  restraint,  falling  into  collision  with 
two  forces  at  once,  —  the  force  of  passion  and  of  youth, — not 
unfrequently  records  its  own  injurious  tendencies,  and  publishes 
the  rebellious  movements  of  nature  by  distinct  and  anomalous 
diseases.  And,  further,  I  have  been  assured,  upon  most  excel 
lent  authority,  that  these  diseases  —  strange  and  elaborate  affec 
tions  of  the  nervous  system  —  are  found  exclusively  among  the 
young  men  and  women  of  the  Quaker  Society ;  that  they  are 
known  and  understood  exclusively  amongst  physicians  who 
have  practised  in  great  towns  having  a  large  Quaker  popula 
tion,  such  as  Birmingham  ;  that  they  assume  a  new  type  and 
a  more  inveterate  character  in  the  second  or  third  generation, 
to  whom  this  fatal  inheritance  is  often  transmitted  ;  and,  finally, 
that  if  this  class  of  nervous  derangements  does  not  increase  so 
much  as  to  attract  public  attention,  it  is  simply  because  the 
community  itself — the  Quaker  body — does  not  increase,  but, 
on  the  contrary,  is  rather  on  the  wane." 

There  exist  many  good  stories  which  have  for  their  point  the 
passions  of  the  natural  man  breaking  forth,  in  members  of  this 
persuasion,  in  a  shape  more  droll  than  distressing.  One  of  the 
best  of  these  is  a  north-country  anecdote,  preserved  by  Francis 
Douglas  in  his  description  of  the  east  coast  of  Scotland.  The 
hero  was  the  first  Quaker  of  that  Barclay  family  which  pro 
duced  the  apologist  and  the  pugilist.  He  was  a  colonel  in  the 
great  civil  wars,  and  had  seen  wild  work  in  his  day  ;  but  in  his. 
old  age  a  change  came  over  him,  and,  becoming  a  follower  of 
George  Fox,  he  retired  to  spend  his  old  age  on  his  ancestral. 


8  niS  NATURE. 

The  present,  however,  is  not  an  inquiry  into  the 
first  principles  either  of  ethics  or  of  physiology. 
The  object  of  this  rambling  preamble  is  to  win 
from  the  reader  a  morsel  of  genial  fellow-feeling 
towards  the  human  frailty  which  we  are  going  to 
examine  and  lay  bare  before  him,  trusting  that  he 
will  treat  it  neither  with  the  haughty  disdain  of 
the  immaculate,  nor  the  grim  chanty  of  the  "  mis 
erable  sinner:"  that  he  may  even,  when  sighing 
over  it  as  a  failing,  yet  kindly  remember  that,  in 
comparison  with  many  others,  it  is  a  failing  that 
leans  to  virtue's  side.  It  will  not  demand  that 
breadth  of  charity  which  even  rather  rigid  fathers 
are  permitted  to  exercise  by  the  license  of  the  ex 
isting  school  of  French  fiction.1  Neither  will  it 
exact  such  extensive  toleration  as  that  of  the  old 
Aberdeen  laird's  wife,  who,  when  her  sister  laird- 
estate  in  Kincardineslnre.  Here  it  came  to  pass  that  a  brother 
laird  thought  the  old  Quaker  could  be  easily  done,  and  began 
to  encroach  upon  his  marches.  Barclay,  a  strong  man,  with 
the  iron  sinews  of  his  race,  and  their  fierce  spirit  still  burning 
in  his  eyes,  strode  up  to  the  encroacher,  and,  with  a  grim  smile, 
spoke  thus  :  "  Friend,  thou  knowest  that  I  have  become  a  man 
of  peace  and  have  relinquished  strife,  and  therefore  thou  art 
endeavoring  to  take  what  is  not  thine  own,  but  mine,  because 
thou  believest  that,  having  abjured  the  arm  of  the  flesh,  I  cannot 
hinder  thee.  And  yet,  as  thy  friend,  I  advise  thee  to  desist ;  for 
shouldst  thou  succeed  in  rousing  the  old  Adam  within  me,  per 
chance  he  may  prove  too  strong,  not  only  for  me,  but  for  thee.'' 
There  was  no  use  of  attempting  to  answer  such  an  argument. 

1  In  the  renowned  Dame  mix  Came'lias,  the  respectable,  rigid, 
and  rather  indignant  father  addresses  his  erring  son  thus :  "  Que 
vous  ayez  une  maitresse,  c'est  fort  bien  ;  que  vous  la  payiez  com- 
me  un  galant  homme  doit  payer  1'amour  d'une  fille  entretenue  — 


INTRODUCTORY.  9 

esses  were  enriching  the  tea-table  conversation  with 
broad  descriptions  of  the  abominable  vices  of  their 
several  spouses,  said  her  own  "  was  just  a  gueed, 
weel-tempered,  couthy,  queat,  innocent,  daedlin, 
drncken  body  —  wi'  nae  ill  practices  aboot  him 
ava !  "  But  all  things  in  their  own  time  and  place. 
To  understand  the  due  weight  and  bearing  of  this 
feeling  of  optimism,  it  is  necessary  to  remember 
that  its  happy  owner  had  probably  spent  her  youth 
in  that  golden  age  when  it  was  deemed  churlish 

O  O 

to  bottle  the  claret,  and  each  filled  his  stoup  at  the 
fountain  of  the  flowing  hogshead  ;  and  if  the  darker 
days  of  dear  claret  came  upon  her  times,  there  was 
still  to  fall  back  upon  the  silver  age  of  smuggled 
usquebaugh,  when  the  types  of  a  really  hospitable 
country-house  were  an  anker  of  whiskey  always  on 
the  spigot,  a  caldron  ever  on  the  bubble  with  boil- 

c'est  on  ne  petit  mieux  ;  mais  que  vous  oubliez  les  choses  les 
plus  saintes  pour  elle,  que  vous  permettiez  que  la  bruit  de  votre 
vie  scandaleuse  arrive  jusqu'au  fond  de  ma  province,  et  jette 
1'ombre  d'une  tache  sur  le  nom  honorable  que  je  vous  ai  donne 
—  voila  ce  qui  ne  peut  etre,  voila  ce  qui  ne  sera  pas." 

So  even  the  French  novelists  draw  the  line  "somewhere,"  and 
in  other  departments  of  morals  they  may  be  found  drawing  it 
closer  than  many  good  uncharitable  Christians  among  us  would 
wish.  In  one  very  popular  novel,  the  victim  spends  his  wife's 
fortune  at  the  gaming-table,  leaves  her  to  starve,  lives  with  an 
other  woman,  and,  having  committed  forgery,  plots  with  the 
Mephistopheles  of  the  story  to  buy  his  own  safety  at  the  price 
of  his  wife's  honor.  This  might  seem  bad  enough,  but  worse 
remains.  It  is  told  in  a  smothered  whisper,  by  the  faithful  do 
mestic,  to  the  horrified  family,  that  he  has  reason  to  suspect  his 
master  of  having  indulged,  once  at  least,  if  not  oftener,  in  bran- 
dy-and-water ! 


10  JUS  NATURE. 

ing  water,  and  a  cask  of  sugar  with  a  spade  in  it,  — 
all  for  the  manufacture  of  toddy. 

But,  in  truth,  the  feeling  that  in  some  quarters 
might  be  raised  hy  this  cool  way  of  treating  such 
social  phenomena,  excites  some  misgivings  about 
calling  attention  to  any  kind  of  human  frailty  or 
folly,  since  the  world  is  full  of  people  who  are  pre 
pared  to  deal  with  and  cure  it,  provided  only  that 
they  are  to  have  their  own  way  with  the  disease 
and  the  patient,  and  that  they  shall  enjoy  the  sim 
ple  privilege  of  locking  him  up,  dieting  him,  and 
taking  possession  of  his  worldly  goods  and  interests, 
as  one  who,  by  his  irrational  habits,  or  his  outrages 
on  the  laws  of  physiology,  or  the  fitness  of  things, 
or  some  other  neology,  has  satisfactorily  established 
his  utter  incapacity  to  take  charge  of  his  own 
affairs.  No  !  This  is  not  a  cruel  age  ;  the  rack, 
the  wheel,  the  boot,  the  thumbikins,  even  the  pil 
lory  and  the  stocks,  have  disappeared  ;  death-pun 
ishment  is  dwindling  away ;  and  if  convicts  have 
not  their  full  rations  of  cooked  meat,  or  get  dam 
aged  coffee  or  sour  milk,  or  are  inadequately  sup 
plied  with  flannels  and  clean  linen,  there  will  be 
an  outcry  and  an  inquiry,  and  a  Secretary  of  State 
wrill  lose  a  percentage  of  his  influence,  and  learn  to 
look  better  after  the  administration  of  patronage. 
But,  at  the  same  time,  the  area  of  punishment  —  or 
of  "  treatment,"  as  it  is  mildly  termed  —  becomes 
alarmingly  widened,  and  people  require  to  look 
sharply  into  themselves  lest  they  should  be  tainted 
with  any  little  frailty  or  peculiarity  which  may 


INTRODUCTORY.  H 

transfer  them  from  the  class  of  free  self-regulators 
to  that  of  persons  "  under  treatment."  In  Owen's 
parallelograms  there  were  to  be  no  prisons  :  he  ad 
mitted  no  power  in  one  man  to  inflict  punishment 
upon  another  for  merely  obeying  the  dictates  of 
natural  propensities  which  could  not  be  resisted. 
But,  at  the  same  time,  there  were  to  be  "hospitals" 
in  which  not  only  the  physically  diseased,  but  also 
the  mentally  and  morally  diseased,  were  to  be  de 
tained  until  they  were  cured ;  and  when  we  reflect 
that  the  laws  of  the  parallelogram  were  very  strin 
gent  and  minute,  and  required  to  be  absolutely  en 
forced  to  the  letter,  otherwise  the  whole  machinery 
of  society  would  come  to  pieces,  like  a  watch  with 
a  broken  spring,  —  it  is  clear  that  these  hospitals 
would  have  contained  a  very  large  proportion  of 
the  miration alized  population. 

There  is  rather  an  alarming  amount  of  this  sort 
of  communism  now  among  us ;  and  it  is  therefore 
with  some  little  misgiving  that  one  sets  down  any 
thing  that  may  betray  a  brother's  weakness,  and  lay 
bare  the  diagnosis  of  a  human  frailty.  Indeed,  the 
bad  name  that  proverbially  hangs  the  dog  has  al 
ready  been  given  to  it,  for  bibliomania  is  older  in 
the  technology  of  this  kind  of  nosology  than  dipso 
mania,  which  is  now  understood  to  be  an  almost 
established  ground  for  seclusion,  and  deprivation  of 
the  management  of  one's  own  affairs.  There  is  one 
ground  of  consolation,  however,  —  the  people  who, 
being  all  right  themselves,  have  undertaken  the 
duty  of  keeping  in  order  the  rest  of  the  world, 


12  HIS  NATURE. 

have  far  too  serious  a  task  in  hand  to  afford  time 
for  idle  reading.  There  is  a  good  chance,  there 
fore,  that  this  little  book  may  pass  them  unnoticed, 
and  the  harmless  class  on  whose  peculiar  frailties 
the  present  occasion  is  taken  for  devoting  a  gentle 
and  kindly  exposition,  may  yet  be  permitted  to  go 
at  large. 

So  having  spoken,  I  now  propose  to  make  the 
reader  acquainted  with  some  characteristic  speci 
mens  of  the  class. 


l)ision  of 


the  first  case,  let  us  summon  from  the 
shades  my  venerable  friend,  Archdeacon 
Meadow,  as  he  was  in  the  body.  You 
see  him  now  —  tall,  straight,  and  meagre, 
but  with  a  grim  dignity  in  his  air  which  warms  into 
benignity  as  he  inspects  a  pretty  little,  clean  Elzevir, 
or  a  tall,  portly  Stephens,  concluding  his  inward  esti 
mate  of  the  prize  with  a  peculiar  grunting  chuckle, 
known  by  the  initiated  to  be  an  important  announce 
ment.  This  is  no  doubt  one  of  the  milder  and  more 
inoffensive  types,  but  still  a  thoroughly  confirmed 
and  obstinate  case.  Its  parallel  to  the  classes  who 
are  to  be  taken  charge  of  by  their  wiser  neighbors 
is  only  too  close  and  awful  ;  for  have  not  sometimes 
the  female  members  of  his  household  been  known 
on  occasion  of  some  domestic  emergency  —  or,  it 


MIGHTY  BOOK-HUNTERS.  13 

may  be,  for  mere  sake  of  keeping  the  lost  man  out 
of  mischief —  to  have  been  searching  for  him  on 
from  bookstall  unto  bookstall,  just  as  the  mothers, 
wives,  and  daughters  of  other  lost  men  hunt  them 
through  their  favorite  taverns?  Then,  again,  can 
one  forget  that  occasion  of  his  going  to  London  to 
be  examined  by  a  committee  of  the  House  of  Com 
mons,  when  he  suddenly  disappeared  with  all  his 
money  in  his  pocket,  and  returned  penniless,  fol 
lowed  by  a  wagon  containing  372  copies  of  rare 
editions  of  the  Bible  ?  All  were  fish  that  came  to 
his  net.  At  one  time  you  might  find  him  securing 
a  minnow  for  sixpence  at  a  stall ;  and  presently 
afterwards  he  outbids  some  princely  collector,  and 
secures  with  frantic  impetuosity,  "  at  any  price,"  a 
great  fish  he  has  been  patiently  watching  year  after 
year.  His  hunting-grounds  were  wide  and  distant, 
and  there  were  mysterious  rumors  about  the  num 
bers  of  copies,  all  identically  the  same  in  edition 
and  minor  individualities,  which  he  possessed  of 
certain  books.  I  have  known  him,  indeed,  when 
beaten  at  an  auction,  turn  round  resignedly  and 
say,  "Well,  so  be  it  —  but  I  dare  say  I  have  ten 
or  twelve  copies  at  home,  if  I  could  lay  hands  on 
them." 

It  is  a  matter  of  extreme  anxiety  to  his  friends, 
and,  if  he  have  a  well-constituted  mind,  of  sad  mis 
giving  to  himself,  when  the  collector  buys  his  first 
duplicate.  It  is  like  the  first  secret  dram  swallowed 
in  the  forenoon  —  the  first  pawning  of  the  silver 
spoons  —  or  any  other  terrible  first  step  downwards 


14  HIS  NATURE. 

you  may  please  to  liken  it  to.  There  is  no  hope  for 
the  patient  after  this.  It  rends  at  once  the  veil  of 
decorum  spun  out  of  the  flimsy  sophisms  by  which 
he  has  been  deceiving  his  friends,  and  partially  de 
ceiving  himself,  into  the  belief  that  his  previous 
purchases  were  necessary,  or  at  all  events  service 
able,  for  professional  and  literary  purposes.  He  now 
becomes  shameless  and  hardened  ;  and  it  is  observ 
able  in  the  career  of  this  class  of  unfortunates,  that 
the  first  act  of  duplicity  is  immediately  followed  by 
an  access  of  the  disorder,  and  a  reckless  abandon 
ment  to  its  propensities.  The  Archdeacon  had  long 
passed  this  stage  ere  he  crossed  my  path,  and  had 
become  thoroughly  hardened.  He  was  not  remark 
able  for  local  attachment ;  and  in  moving  from  place 
to  place,  his  spoil,  packed  in  innumerable  great  boxes, 
sometimes  followed  him,  to  remain  unreleased  during 
the  whole  period  of  his  tarrying  in  his  new  abode, 
so  that  they  were  removed  to  the  next  stage  of  his 
journey  through  life  with  modified  inconvenience. 

Cruel  as  it  may  seem,  I  must  yet  notice  another 
and  a  peculiar  vagary  of  his  malady.  He  had  re 
solved,  at  least  once  in  his  life,  to  part  with  a  con 
siderable  proportion  of  his  collection  —  better  to 
suffer  the  anguish  of  such  an  act  than  endure  the 
fretting  of  continued  restraint.  There  was  a  won 
drous  sale  by  auction  accordingly ;  it  was  something 
like  what  may  have  occurred  at  the  dissolution  of 
the  monasteries  at  the  Reformation,  or  when  the 
contents  of  some  time-honored  public  library  were 
realized  at  the  period  of  the  French  Revolution. 


MIGHTY  BOOK-HUNTERS.  15 

Before  the  affair  was  over,  the  Archdeacon  himself 
made  his  appearance  in  the  midst  of  the  miscella 
neous  self-invited  guests  who  were  making  free  with 
his  treasures.  He  pretended,  honest  man,  to  be  a 
mere  casual  spectator,  who,  having  seen,  in  passing, 
the  announcement  of  a  sale  by  auction,  stepped  in 
like  the  rest  of  the  public.  By  degrees  he  got  ex 
cited,  gasped  once  or  twice  as  if  mastering  some 
desperate  impulse,  and  at  length  fairly  bade.  He 
could  not  brazen  out  the  effect  of  this  escapade, 
however,  and  disappeared  from  the  scene.  It  was 
remarked,  however,  that  an  unusual  number  of  lots 
were  afterwards  knocked  down  to  a  military  gentle 
man,  who  seemed  to  have  left  portentously  large  or 
ders  with  the  auctioneer.  Some  curious  suspicions 
began  to  arise,  which  were  settled  by  that  presiding 
genius  bending  over  his  rostrum,  and  explaining  in 
a  confidential  whisper  that  the  military  hero  was  in 
reality  a  pillar  of  the  church  so  disguised. 

The  Archdeacon  lay  under  what,  among  a  por 
tion  of  the  victims  of  his  malady,  was  deemed  a 
heavy  scandal.  He  was  suspected  of  reading  his 
own  books  —  that  is  to  say,  when  he  could  get  at 
them  ;  for  there  are  those  who  may  still  remember 
his  rather  shamefaced  apparition  of  an  evening,  pe 
titioning,  somewhat  in  the  tone  with  which  an  old 
schoolfellow  down  in  the  world  requests  your  assist 
ance  to  help  him  to  go  to  York  to  get  an  appoint 
ment —  petitioning  for  the  loan  of  a  volume  of  which 
he  could  not  deny  that  he  possessed  numberless  cop 
ies  lurking  in  divers  parts  of  his  vast  collection. 


16  HIS  NATURE. 

This  reputation  of  reading  the  books  in  his  collec 
tion,  which  should  be  sacred  to  external  inspection 
solely,  is,  with  a  certain  school  of  book-collectors,  a 
scandal,  such  as  it  would  be  among  a  hunting  set  to 
hint  that  a  man  had  killed  a  fox.  In  the  dialogues, 
not  always  the  most  entertaining,  of  Dibdin's  Bib 
liomania,  there  is  this  short  passage:  "  4  I  will 
frankly  confess/  rejoined  Lysander,  '  that  I  am 
an  arrant  bibliomaniac,  —  that  I  love  books  dearly, 
—  that  the  very  sight,  touch,  and  mere  perusal ' 
4  Hold,  my  friend,'  again  exclaimed  Phile 
mon  ;  'you  have  renounced  your  profession — you 
talk  of  reading  books — do  bibliomaniacs  ever  read 
books?'" 

Yes,  the  Archdeacon  read  books, — he  devoured 
them  ;  and  he  did  so  to  full  prolific  purpose.  His 
was  a  mind  enriched  with  varied  learning,  which  he 
gave  forth  with  full,  strong,  easy  flow,  like  an  inex 
haustible  perennial  spring  coming  from  inner  reser 
voirs,  never  dry,  yet  too  capacious  to  exhibit  the 
brawling,  bubbling  symptoms  of  repletion.  It  was 
from  a  majestic  heedlessness  of  the  busy  world  and 
its  fame  that  he  got  the  character  of  indolence,  and 
was  set  down  as  one  who  would  leave  no  lasting 
memorial  of  his  great  learning.  But  when  he  died, 
it  was  not  altogether  without  leaving  a  sign  ;  for 
from  the  casual  droppings  of  his  pen  has  been  pre 
served  enough  to  signify  to  many  generations  of 
students  in  the  walk  he  chiefly  affected  how  richly 
his  mind  was  stored,  and  how  much  fresh  matter 
there  is  in  those  fields  of  inquiry  where  compilers 


MIGHTY  BOOK-HUNTERS.  17 

have  left  their  dreary  tracks,  for  ardent  students  to 
cultivate  into  a  rich  harvest.  In  him  truly  the 
bibliomania  may  be  counted  among  the  many  illus 
trations  of  the  truth  so  often  moralized  on,  that  the 
highest  natures  are  not  exempt  from  human  frailty 
in  some  shape  or  other. 

Let  us  now  summon  the  shade  of  another  de 
parted  victim  —  Fitzpatrick  Smart,  Esq.  He,  too,, 
through  a  long  life,  had  been  a  vigilant  and  enthu 
siastic  collector,  but  after  a  totally  different  fashion. 
He  was  far  from  omnivorous.  He  had  a  principle 
of  selection  peculiar  and  separate  from  all  other's, 
as  was  his  own  individuality  from  other  men's. 
You  could  not  classify  his  library  according  to  any 
of  the  accepted  nomenclatures  peculiar  to  the  in 
itiated.  He  was  not  a  black-letter  man*  or  a  tall- 
copyist,  or  an  uncut  man,  or  a  rough-edge  man, 
or  an  early-English-dramatist,  or  an  Elzevirian,  or 
a  broadsider,  or  a  pasquinader,  or  an  old-brown-calf 
man,  or  a  Grangerite,  or  a  tawny-moroccoite,  or  a 
gilt>topper,  a  marbled-insider,  or  an  editio  princeps 
man  ;  neither  did  he  come  under  any  of  the  more 
vulgar  classifications  of  an  antiquarian,  or  a  belles- 
lettres,  or  a  classical  collector.  There  was  no  way 
of  defining  his  peculiar  walk  save  by  his  own  name 
—  it  was  the  Fitzpatrick-Smart  walk.  In  fact,  it 
wound  itself  in  infinite  windings  through  isolated 
spots  of  literary  scenery,  if  we  may  so  speak,  in 
which  he  took  a  personal  interest.  There  were 
historical  events,  bits  of  family  history,  chiefly  of  a 
tragic  or  a  scandalous  kind,  —  efforts  of  art  or  of 


18  HIS  NATURE. 

literary  genius  on  which,  through  some  intellectual 
law,  his  mind  and  memory  loved  to  dwell  ;  and  it 
was  in  reference  to  these  that  he  collected.  If  the 
book  were  the  one  desired  by  him,  no  anxiety  and 
toil,  no  payable  price,  was  to  be  grudged  for  its  ac 
quisition.  If  the  book  were  an  inch  out  of  his  own 
line,  it  might  be  trampled  in  the  mire  for  aught  he 
cared,  be  it  as  rare  or  costly  as  it  could  be. 

It  was  difficult,  almost  impossible,  for  others  to 
predicate  what  would  please  this  wayward  sort  of 
taste,  and  he  was  the  torment  of  the  book-caterers, 
who  were  sure  of  a  princely  price  for  the  right  arti 
cle,  but  might  have  the  wrong  one  thrown  in  their 
teeth  with  contumely.  It  was  a  perilous,  but,  if 
successful,  a  gratifying  thing  to  present  him  with 
a  book.  If  it  happened  to  hit  his  fancy,  he  felt 
the  full  force  of  the  compliment,  and  overwhelmed 
^the  giver  with  his  courtly  thanks.  But  it  required 
-great  observation  and  tact  to  fit  one  for  such  an 
.adventure,  for  the  chances  against  an  ordinary 
•thoughtless  gift-maker  were  thousands  to  one  ;  and 
those  who  were  acquainted  with  his  strange  ner 
vous  temperament,  knew  that  the  existence  within 
his  dwelling-place  of  any  book  not  of  his  own  spe 
cial  kind,  would  impart  to  him  the  sort  of  feeling  of 
uneasy  horror  which  a  bee  is  said  to  feel  when  an 
earwig  comes  into  its  cell.  Presentation  copies  by 
.authors  were  among  the  chronic  torments  of  his 
existence.  While  the  complacent  author  was  per 
haps  pluming  himself  on  his  liberality  in  making 
the  judicious  gift,  the  recipient  was  pouring  out  all 


MIGHTY  BOOK-HUNTERS.  19 

his  sarcasm,  which  was  not  feeble  or  slight,  on  the 
odious  object,  and  wondering  why  an  author  could 
have  entertained  against  him  so  steady  and  endur 
ing  a  malice  as  to  take  the  trouble  of  writing  and 
printing  all  that  rubbish  with  no  better  object  than 
disturbing  the  peace  of  mind  of  an  inoffensive  old 
man.  Every  tribute  from  such  dona  ferentes  cost 
him  much  uneasiness  and  some  want  of  sleep  —  for 
what  could  he  do  with  it  ?  It  was  impossible  to 
make  merchandise  of  it,  for  he  was  every  inch  a 
gentleman.  He  could  not  burn  it,  for  under  an 
acrid  exterior  he  had  a  kindly  nature.  It  was  be 
lieved,  indeed,  that  he  had  established  some  limbo 
of  his  own,  in  which  such  unwelcome  commodities 
were  subject  to  a  kind  of  burial  or  entombment, 
where  they  remained  in  existence,  yet  were  decid 
edly  outside  the  circle  of  his  household  gods. 

These  gods  were  a  pantheon  of  a  very  extraor 
dinary  description,  for  he  was  a  hunter  after  other 
things  besides  books.  His  acquisitions  included 
pictures,  and  the  various  commodities  which,  for 
want  of  a  distinctive  name,  auctioneers  call  "  mis 
cellaneous  articles  of  vertu."  He  started  on  his 
accumulating  career  with  some  old  family  relics, 
and  these,  perhaps,  gave  the  direction  to  his  subse 
quent  acquisitions,  for  they  were  all,  like  his  books, 
brought  together  after  some  self-willed  and  peculiar 
law  of  association  that  pleased  himself.  A  bad, 
even  an  inferior  picture  he  would  not  have,  —  for 
his  taste  was  exquisite,  —  unless,  indeed,  it  had 
some  strange  history  about  it,  adapting  it  to  his 


20  HIS  NATURE. 

wayward  fancies,  and  then  he  would  adopt  the  bad 
ness  as  a  peculiar  recommendation,  and  point  it  out 
with  some  pungent  and  appropriate  remark  to  his 
friends.  But  though,  with  these  peculiar  excep 
tions,  his  works  of  art  were  faultless,  no  dealer 
could  ever  calculate  on  his  buying  a  picture,  how 
ever  high  a  work  of  art  or  great  a  bargain.  With 
his  ever-accumulating  collection,  in  which  tiny 
sculpture  and  brilliant  color  predominated,  he  kept 
a  sort  of  fairy  world  around  him.  But  each  one  of 
the  mob  of  curious  things  he  preserved  had  some 
story  linking  it  with  others,  or  with  his  peculiar 
fancies ;  and  each  one  had  its  precise  place  in  a  sort 
of  epos,  as  certainly  as  each  of  the  persons  in  the 
confusion  of  a  pantomime  or  a  farce  has  his  own 
position  and  functions. 

After  all,  he  was  himself  his  own  greatest  curi 
osity.  He  had  come  to  manhood  just  after  the 
period  of  gold-laced  waistcoats,  small-clothes,  and 
shoe-buckles,  otherwise  he  would  have  been  long 
a  living  memorial  of  these  now  antique  habits.  It 
happened  to  be  his  lot  to  preserve  down  to  us  the 
earliest  phase  of  the  pantaloon  dynasty.  So,  while 
the  rest  of  the  world  were  booted  or  heavy  shod, 
his  silk-stockinged  feet  were  thrust  into  pumps  of 
early  Oxford  cut,  and  the  predominant  garment 
was  the  surtout,  blue  in  color,  and  of  the  original 
make  before  it  came  to  be  called  a  frock.  Round 
his  neck  was  wrapped  an  ante-Brummelite  necker 
chief  (not  a  tie),  which  projected  in  many  wreaths 
like  a  great  poultice,  —  and  so  he  took  his  walks 


MIGHTY  BOOK-HUNTERS.  21 

abroad,  a  figure  which  he  could  himself  have  turned 
into  admirable  ridicule. 

One  of  the  mysteries  about  him  was,  that  his 
clothes,  though  unlike  any  other  person's,  were 
always  old.  This  characteristic  could  not  even  be 
accounted  for  by  the  supposition  that  he  had  laid 
in  a  sixty  years'  stock  in  his  youth,  for  they  always 
appeared  to  have  been  a  good  deal  worn.  The  very 
umbrella  was  in  keeping  —  it  was  of  green  silk,  an 
obsolete  color  ten  years  ago  —  and  the  handle  was 
of  a  peculiar  crosier-like  formation  in  cast-horn, 
obviously  not  obtainable  in  the  market.  His  face 
was  ruddy,  but  not  with  the  ruddiness  of  youth  ; 
and,  bearing  on  his  head  a  Brutus  wig  of  the  light- 
brown  hair  which  had  long  ago  legitimately  shaded 
his  brow,  when  he  stood  still  —  except  for  his  linen, 
which  was  snowy  white  —  one  might  suppose  that 
he  had  been  shot  and  stuffed  on  his  return  home 
from  college,  and  had  been  sprinkled  with  the 
frowzy  mouldiness  which  time  imparts  to  stuffed 
animals  and  other  things,  in  which  a  semblance  to 
the  freshness  of  living  nature  is  vainly  attempted  to 
be  preserved.  So  if  he  were  motionless  ;  but  let 
him  speak,  and  the  internal  freshness  was  still  there, 
an  ever-blooming  garden  of  intellectual  flowers. 
His  antiquated  costume  was  no  longer  grotesque 
—  it  harmonized  with  an  antiquated  courtesy  and 
high-bred  gentleness  of  manner,  which  he  had  ac 
quired  from  the  best  sources,  since  he  had  seen 
the  first  company  in  his  day,  whether  for  rank  or 
genius.  And  conversation  and  manner  were  far 


22  BIS  NATURE. 

from  exhausting  his  resources.  He  had  a  won 
derful  pencil  —  it  was  potent  for  the  beautiful,  the 
terrible,  and  the  ridiculous  ;  but  it  took  a  wayward 
wilful  course,  like  everything  else  about  him.  He 
had  a  brilliant  pen,  too,  when  he  chose  to  wield  it ; 
but  the  idea  that  he  should  exercise  any  of  these 
his  gifts  in  common  display  before  the  world,  for 
any  even  of  the  higher  motives  that  make  people 
desire  fame  and  praise,  would  have  sickened  him. 
His  faculties  were  his  own  as  much  as  his  collec 
tion,  and  to  be  used  according  to  his  caprice  and 
pleasure.  So  fluttered  through  existence  one  who, 
had  it  been  his  fate  to  have  his  own  bread  to  make, 
might  have  been  a  great  man.  Alas  for  the  end  ! 
Some  curious  annotations  are  all  that  remain  of  his 
literary  powers  —  some  drawings  and  etchings  in 
private  collections  all  of  his  artistic.  His  collec 
tion,  with  its  long  train  of  legends  and  associations, 
came  to  what  he  himself  must  have  counted  as  dis 
persal.  He  left  it  to  his  housekeeper,  who,  like  a 
wise  woman,  converted  it  into  cash  while  its  mys 
terious  reputation  was  fresh.  Huddled  in  a  great 
auction-room,  its  several  catalogued  items  lay  in 
humiliating  contrast  with  the  decorous  order  in 
which  they  were  wont  to  be  arranged.  Sic  tran 
sit  gloria  mundi. 

Let  us  now  call  up  a  different  and  a  more  common 
place  type  of  the  book-hunter  —  it  shall  be  Inch- 
rule  Brewer.  He  is  guiltless  of  all  intermeddling 
with  the  contents  of  books,  but  in  their  external 
attributes  his  learning  is  marvellous.  He  derived 


MIGHTY  BOOK-HUNTERS.  23 

his  nickname  from  the  practice  of  keeping,  as  his 
inseparable  pocket-companion,  one  of  those  gradu 
ated  folding  measures  of  length  which  may  often  be 
seen  protruding  from  the  moleskin  pocket  of  the 
joiner.  He  used  it  at  auctions,  and  on  other  appro 
priate  occasions,  to  measure  the  different  elements 
of  a  book  —  the  letter-press  —  the  unprinted  margin 
—  the  external  expanse  of  the  binding ;  for  to  the 
perfectly  scientific  collector  all  these  things  are  very 
significant.1  They  are,  in  fact,  on  record  among 
the  craft,  like  the  pedigrees  and  physical  character 
istics  recorded  in  stud-books  and  short-horn  books. 
One  so  accomplished  in  this  kind  of  analysis  could 
tell  at  once,  by  this  criterion,  whether  the  treasure 
under  the  hammer  was  the  same  that  had  been 
knocked  down  before  at  the  Roxburghe  sale  —  the 
Askew,  Gordonstown,  or  the  Heber,  perhaps  —  or 
was  veritably  an  impostor  —  or  was  in  reality  a 
new  and  previously  unknown  prize  well  worth  con 
tending  for.  The  minuteness  and  precision  of  his 

1  Of  the  copy  of  the  celebrated  1635  Elzevir  Ccesar,  in  the 
Imperial  Library  at  Paris,  Brunei  triumphantly  informs  us  that 
it  is  four  inches  and  ten  twelfths  in  height,  and  occupies  the  high 
position  of  being  the  tallest  copy  of  that  volume  in  the  world, 
since  other  illustrious  copies  put  in  competition  with  it  have 
been  found  not  to  exceed  four  inches  and  eight,  or,  at  the  utmost, 
nine,  twelfths. 

"  Ces  de'tails,"  he  subjoins,  "  paroitront  sans  doute  puerils  a 
bien  des  gens  :  mais  puisque  c'est  la  grandeur  des  marges  de 
ces  sorts  de  livres  qu'en  determine  la  valeur,  il  faut  bien  fixer 
le  maximum  de  cette  grandeur,  afin  que  les  amateurs  puissent 
apprecier  les  exemplaires  qui  approchent  plus  ou  moins  de  la* 
mesure  donnee." 


24  BIS  NATURE. 

knowledge  excited  wonder,  and,  being  anomalous 
in  the  male  sex  even  among  collectors,  gave  occa 
sion  to  a  rumor  that  its  possessor  must  veritably  be 
an  aged  maiden  in  disguise. 

His  experience,  aided  by  a  heaven-born  genius 
tending  in  that  direction,  rendered  him  the  most 
merciless  detector  of  sophisticated  books.  Nothing, 
it  might  be  supposed  on  first  thought,  can  be  a  sim 
pler  or  more  easily  recognized  thing  than  a  book 
genuine  as  printed.  But  in  the  old-book  trade 
there  are  opportunities  for  the  exercise  of  ingenu 
ity  inferior  only  to  those  which  render  the  picture- 
dealer's  and  the  horse-dealer's  functions  so  mysteri 
ously  interesting.  Sometimes  entire  fac-similes  are 
made  of  eminent  volumes.  More  commonly,  how 
ever,  the  problem  is  to  complete  an  imperfect  copy. 
This  will  be  most  satisfactorily  accomplished,  of 
course,  if  another  copy  can  be  procured  imperfect 
also,  but  not  in  the  same  parts.  Great  ingenuity  is 
sometimes  shown  in  completing  a  lightly  esteemed 
edition  with  fragments  from  one  highly  esteemed. 
Sometimes  a  colophon  or  a  decorated  capital  has  to 
be  imitated,  and  bold  operators  will  reprint  a  page 
or  two  in  fac-simile  ;  these  operations,  of  course, 
involve  the  inlaying  of  paper,  judiciously  staining 
it,  and  other  mysteries.  Paris  is  the  great  centre 
of  this  kind  of  work  ;  but  it  has  been  pretty  ex 
tensively  pursued  in  Britain  ;  and  the  manufac 
ture  of  first-folio  Shakspeares  has  been  nearly  as 
staple  a  trade  as  the  getting  up  of  genuine  portraits 
of  Mary  Queen  of  Scots.  It  will  establish  a  broad 


MIGHTY  BOOK-HUNTERS.  25 

distinction  to  note  the  fact,  that  whereas  our  friend 
the  Archdeacon  would  collect  several  imperfect 
copies  of  the  same  book  in  the  hope  of  finding 
materials  for  one  perfect  one  among  them,  Inch- 
rule  would  remorselessly  spurn  from  him  the  most 
voluptuously  got-up  specimen  (to  use  a  favorite 
phrase  of  Dibdin's)  were  it  tainted  by  the  very 
faintest  "  restoration." 

Among  the  elements  which  constitute  the  value 
of  a  book  —  rarity  of  course  being  equal  —  one 
might  say  he  counted  the  binding  highest.  He 
was  not  alone  in  this  view,  for  it  would  be  difficult 
to  give  the  uninitiated  a  conception  of  the  impor 
tance  attached  to  this  mechanical  department  of 
book-making  by  the  adepts.  About  a  third  of  Dib 
din's  Bibliographical  Decameron  is,  if  I  recollect 
rightly,  devoted  to  bindings.  There  are  binders 
who  have  immortalized  themselves  —  as  Stagge- 
mier,  Walther,  Payne,  Padaloup,  Hering,  De 
Rome,  Faulkner,  Lewis,  Hay  day,  and  Thomson. 
Their  names  may  sometimes  be  found  on  their 
work,  not  with  any  particularities,  as  if  they  re 
quired  to  make  themselves  known,  but  with  the 
simple  brevity  of  illustrious  men.  Thus  you  take 
up  a  morocco-bound  work  of  some  eminence,  on 
the  title-page  of  which  the  author  sets  forth  his  full 
name  and  profession,  with  the  distinctive  initials  of 
certain  learned  societies  to  which  it  is  his  pride  to 
belong  ;  but  the  simple  and  dignified  enunciation, 
deeply  stamped  in  his  own  golden  letters,  "Bound 
by  Hayday,"  is  all  that  that  accomplished  artist 
deigns  to  tell. 


26  HIS  NATURE. 

And  let  us,  after  all,  acknowledge  that  there 
are  few  men  who  are  entirely  above  the  influence 
of  binding.  No  one  likes  sheep's  clothing  for  his 
literature,  even  if  he  should  not  aspire  to  russia  or 
morocco.  Adam  Smith,  one  of  the  least  showy  of 
men,  confessed  himself  to  be  a  beau  in  his  books. 
Perhaps  the  majority  of  men  of  letters  are  so  to 
some  extent,  though  poets  are  apt  to  be  ragamuf 
fins.  It  was  Thomson,  I  believe,  who  used  to  cut 
the  leaves  with  the  snuffers.  Perhaps  an  event  in 
his  early  career  may  have  soured  him  of  the  pro 
prieties.  It  is  said  that  he  had  an  uncle,  a  clever 
active  mechanic,  who  could  do  many  things  with 
his  hands,  and  contemplated  James's  indolent, 
dreamy,  "  feckless "  character  with  impatient  dis 
gust.  When  the  first  of  The  Seasons  —  "  Winter  " 
it  was,  I  believe  —  had  been  completed  at  press, 
Jamie  thought,  by  a  presentation  copy,  to  triumph 
over  his  uncle's  scepticism,  and  to  propitiate  his 
good  opinion  he  had  the  book  handsomely  bound. 
The  old  man  never  looked  inside,  or  asked  what 
the  book  was  about,  but,  turning  it  round  and 
round  with  his  fingers  in  gratified  admiration,  ex 
claimed  —  "  Come,  is  that  really  our  Jamie's  doin' 
now  ?  —  weel,  I  never  thought  the  cratur  wad  hae 
had  the  handicraft  to  do  the  like  !  " 

The  feeling  by  which  this  worthy  man  was  influ 
enced  was  a  mere  sensible  practical  respect  for  good 
workmanship.  The  aspirations  of  the  collectors, 
however,  in  this  matter,  go  out  of  the  boundaries 
of  the  sphere  of  the  utilitarian  into  that  of  the 


MIGHTY  BOOK-HUNTERS.  27 

Aesthetic.  Their  priests  and  prophets,  by  the  way, 
do  not  seem  to  be  aware  how  far  back  this  vener 
ation  for  the  coverings  of  books  may  be  traced,  or 
to  know  how  strongly  their  votaries  have  been  in 
fluenced  in  the  direction  of  their  taste  by  the  tradi 
tions  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The  binding  of  a  book 
was,  of  old,  a  shrine  on  which  the  finest  workman 
ship  in  bullion  and  the  costliest  gems  were  lavished. 
The  psalter  or  the  breviary  of  some  early  saint,  a 
portion  of  the  Scriptures,  or  some  other  volume 
held  sacred,  would  be  thus  enshrined.  It  has  hap 
pened  sometimes  that  tattered  fragments  of  them 
have  been  preserved  as  effective  relics  within  outer 
shells  or  shrines  ;  and  in  some  instances,  long  after 
the  books  themselves  have  disappeared,  specimens 
of  these  old  bindings  have  remained  to  us  beautiful 
in  their  decay ;  —  but  we  are  getting  far  beyond 
the  Inchrule. 

Your  affluent  omnivorous  collector,  who  has  more 
of  that  kind  of  business  on  hand  than  he  can  per 
form  for  himself,  naturally  brings  about  him  a  train 
of  satellites,  who  make  it  their  business  to  minis 
ter  to  his  importunate  cravings.  With  them  the 
phraseology  of  the  initiated  degenerates  into  a  hard 
business  sort  of  slang.  Whatever  slight  remnant  of 
respect  towards  literature  as  a  vehicle  of  knowledge 
may  linger  in  the  conversation  of  their  employers, 
has  never  belonged  to  theirs.  They  are  dealers 
who  have  just  two  things  to  look  to,  —  the  price  of 
their  wares,  and  the  peculiar  propensities  of  the  un 
fortunates  who  employ  them.  Not  that  they  are 


28  HIS  NATURE. 

destitute  of  all  sympathy  with  the  malady  which 
they  feed.  The  caterer  generally  gets  infected  in 
a  superficial  cutaneous  sort  of  way.  He  has  often  a 
collection  himself,  which  he  eyes  complacently  of 
an  evening  as  he  smokes  his  pipe  over  his  brandy- 
and-water,  but  to  which  he  is  not  so  distractedly 
devoted  but  that  a  pecuniary  consideration  will 
tempt  him  to  dismember  it.  It  generally  consists, 
indeed,  of  blunders  or  false  speculations  —  books 
which  have  been  obtained  in  a  mistaken  reliance  on 
their  suiting  the  craving  of  some  wealthy  collector. 
Caterers  unable  to  comprehend  the  subtle  influences 
at  work  in  the  mind  of  the  book-hunter,  often  make 
miscalculations  in  this  way.  Fitzpatrick  Smart 
punished  them  so  terribly  that  they  at  last  aban 
doned  him  in  despair  to  his  own  devices. 

Several  men  of  this  class  were  under  the  author 
ity  of  the  Inchrule,  and  their  communings  were  in 
structive.  "  Thorpe's  catalogue  just  arrived,  sir, 
—  several  highly  important  announcements,"  says 
a  portly  person  with  a  fat  volume  under  his  arm, 
hustling  forward  with  an  air  of  assured  conse 
quence.  There  is  now  to  be  a  deep  and  solemn 
consultation,  as  when  two  ambassadors  are  going 
over  a  heavy  protocol  from  a  third.  It  happened 
to  me  to  see  one  of  these  myrmidons  returning  from 

* 

a  bootless  errand  of  inspection  to  a  reputed  collec 
tion  ;  he  was  hot  and  indignant.  " A  collection" 
he  sputtered  forth  —  u  that  a  collection  !  —  mere 
rubbish,  sir  —  irredeemable  trash.  What  do  you 
think,  sir  ?  —  a  set  of  the  common  quarto  edition 


MIGHTY  BOOK-HUNTERS.  29 

of  the  Delphini  classics,  copies  of  Newton's  works 
and  Bacon's  works,  Gibbon's  Decline  and  Fall,  and 
so  forth  —  nothing  better,  I  declare  to  you  :  and  to 
call  that  a  collection  ! "  Whereas,  had  it  contained 
The  Pardoner  and  the  Frere,  Sir  Clyomon  and 
Clamydes,  A  Knacke  to  Jcnowe  a  Knave,  Bankers 
Bay  Horse  in  a  trance,  or  the  works  of  those 
eminent  dramatists,  Nabbes,  May,  Glapthorne,  or 
Chettle,  then  would  the  collection  have  been  wor 
thy  of  distinguished  notice.  On  another  occasion, 
the  conversation  turning  on  a  name  of  some  repute, 
the  remark  is  ventured,  that  he  is  "  said  to  know 
something  about  books,"  which  brings  forth  the  fatal 
answer  —  "  He  know  about  books  !  —  Nothing  — 
nothing  at  all,  I  assure  you  ;  unless,  perhaps,  about 
their  insides." 

The  next  slide  of  the  lantern  is  to  represent  a 
quite  peculiar  and  abnormal  case.  It  introduces  a 
strangely  fragile,  iinsubstantial,  and  puerile  figure, 
wherein,  however,  resided  one  of  the  most  potent  and 
original  spirits  that  ever  frequented  a  tenement  of 
clay.  He  shall  be  called,  on  account  of  associations 
that  may  or  may  not  be  found  out,  Thomas  Papa- 
verius.  But  how  to  make  palpable  to  the  ordinary 
human  being  one  so  signally  divested  of  all  the  ma 
terial  and  common  characteristics  of  his  race,  yet 
so  nobly  endowed  with  its  rarer  and  loftier  attri 
butes,  almost  paralyzes  the  pen  at  the  very  begin 
ning. 

In  what  mood  and  shape  shall  he  be  brought 
forward  ?  Shall  it  be  as  first  we  met  at  the  table 


30  SIS  NATURE. 

of  Lucullus,  whereto  he  was  seduced  by  the  false 
pretence  that  he  would  there  meet  with  one  who 
entertained  novel  and  anarchical  opinions  regarding 
the  Golden  Ass  of  Apuleius  ?  No  one  speaks  of 
waiting  dinner  for  him.  He  will  come  and  depart 
at  his  own  sweet  will,  neither  burdened  with  punc 
tualities  nor  burdening  others  by  exacting  them. 
The  festivities  of  the  afternoon  are  far  on  when  a 
commotion  is  heard  in  the  hall  as  if  some  doo-  or 

o 

other  stray  animal  had  forced  its  way  in.  The  in 
stinct  of  a  friendly  guest  tells  him  of  the  arrival ; 
he  opens  the  door,  and  fetches  in  the  little  stranger. 
What  can  it  be  ?  a  street-boy  of  some  sort  ?  His 
costume,  in  fact,  is  a  boy's  duffle  great-coat,  very 
threadbare,  with  a  hole  in  it,  and  buttoned  tight  to 
the  chin,  where  it  meets  the  fragments  of  a  parti 
colored  belcher  handkerchief;  on  his  feet  are  list- 
shoes,  covered  with  snow,  for  it  is  a  stormy  winter 
night ;  and  the  trousers  —  some  one  suggests  that 
they  are  inner  linen  garments  blackened  with  writ 
ing-ink,  but  that  Papaverius  never  would  have  been 
at  the  trouble  so  to  disguise  them.  What  can  be 
the  theory  of  such  a  costume  ?  The  simplest  thing 
in  the  world  —  it  consisted  of  the  fragments  of  ap 
parel  nearest  at  hand.  Had  chance  thrown  to  him 
a  court  single-breasted  coat,  with  a  bishop's  apron, 
a  kilt,  and  top-boots,  in  these  he  would  have  made 
his  entry. 

The  first  impression  that  a  boy  has  appeared  van 
ishes  instantly.  Though  in  one  of  the  sweetest  and 
most  genial  of  his  essays  he  shows  how  every  man 


MIGHTY  BOOK-HUNTERS.  31 

retains  so  much  in  him  of  the  child  he  originally 
was  —  and  he  himself  retained  a  great  deal  of  that 
primitive  simplicity  —  it  was  buried  within  the 
depths  of  his  heart  —  not  visible  externally.  On 
the  contrary,  on  one  occasion  when  he  corrected  an 
erroneous  reference  to  an  event  as  being  a  century 
old,  by  saying  that  he  recollected  its  occurrence, 
one  felt  almost  a  surprise  at  the  necessary  limitation 
in  his  age,  so  old  did  he  appear  with  his  arched 
brow  loaded  with  thought,  and  the  countless  little 
wrinkles  which  ingrained  his  skin,  gathering  thick 
ly  round  the  curiously  expressive  and  subtle  lips. 
These  lips  are  speedily  opened  by  some  casual  re 
mark,  and  presently  the  flood  of  talk  passes  forth 
from  them,  free,  clear,  and  continuous  —  never 
rising  into  declamation  —  never  losing  a  certain 
mellow  earnestness,  and  all  consisting  of  sentences 
as  exquisitely  jointed  together,  as  if  they  were  des 
tined  to  challenge  the  criticism  of  the  remotest 
posterity.  Still  the  hours  stride  over  each  other, 
and  still  flows  on  the  stream  of  gentle  rhetoric,  as 
if  it  were  labitur  et  labetur  in  omne  volubilis  cevum. 
It  is  now  far  in  to  the  night,  and  slight  hints  and 
suggestions  are  propagated  about  separation  and 
home-going.  The  topic  starts  new  ideas  on  the 
progress  of  civilization,  the  effect  of  habit  on  men 
in  all  ages,  and  the  power  of  the  domestic  affec 
tions.  Descending  from  generals  to  the  special, 
he  could  testify  to  the  inconvenience  of  late  hours  ; 
for,  was  it  not  the  other  night  that,  coming  to  what 
was,  or  what  he  believed  to  be,  his  own  door,  he 


32  HIS  NATURE. 

knocked,  and  knocked  ;  but  the  old  woman  within 
either  couldn't  or  wouldn't  hear  him  ;  so  he  scram 
bled  over  a  wall,  and  having  taken  his  repose  in  a 
furrow,  was  able  to  testify  to  the  extreme  unpleas 
antness  of  such  a  couch.  The  predial  groove  might 
indeed  nourish  kindly  the  infant  seeds  and  shoots  of 
the  peculiar  vegetable  to  which  it  was  appropriated, 
but  was  not  a  comfortable  place  of  repose  for  adult 
man. 

Shall  I  try  another  sketch  of  him,  when,  travel- 
stained  and  foot-sore,  he  glided  in  on  us  one  night 
like  a  shadow,  the  child  by  the  fire  gazing  on  him 
with  round  eyes  of  astonishment,  and  suggesting 
that  he  should  get  a  penny  and  go  home  —  a  pro 
posal  which  he  subjected  to  some  philosophical  criti 
cism  very  far  wide  of  its  practical  tenor.  How  far 
he  had  wandered  since  he  had  last  refreshed  him 
self,  or  even  whether  he  had  eaten  food  that  day, 
were  matters  on  which  there  was  no  getting  articu 
late  utterance  from  him.  Though  his  costume  was 
muddy,  however,  and  his  communications  about  the 
material  wants  of  life  very  hazy,  the  ideas  which  he 
had  stored  up  during  his  wandering  poured  them 
selves  forth  as  clear  and  sparkling,  both  in  logic 
and  language,  as  the  purest  fountain  that  springs 
from  a  Highland  rock. 

O 

How  that  wearied,  worn,  little  body  was  to  be 
refreshed  was  a  difficult  problem  :  soft  food  dis 
agreed  with  him  —  the  hard  he  could  not  eat. 
Suggestions  pointed  at  length  to  the  solution  of 
that  vegetable  unguent  to  which  he  had  given  a 


MIGHTY  BOOK-HUNTERS.  33 

sort  of  lustre,  and  it  might  be  supposed  that  there 
were  some  fifty  cases  of  acute  toothache  to  be 
treated  in  the  house  that  night.  How  many 
drops  ?  Drops  !  nonsense.  If  the  wineglasses  of 
the  establishment  were  not  beyond  the  ordinary 
normal  size,  there  was  no  risk  —  and  so  the  weary 
is  at  rest  for  a  time. 

At  early  morn  a  triumphant  cry  of  Eureka  !  calls 
me  to  his  place  of  rest.  With  his  unfailing  instinct 
he  has  got  at  the  books,  and  lugged  a  considerable 
heap  of  them  around  him.  That  one  which  spe 
cially  claims  his  attention  —  my  best  bound  quarto 
—  is  spread  upon  a  piece  of  bedroom  furniture 
readily  at  hand,  and  of  sufficient  height  to  let  him 
pore  over  it  as  he  lies  recumbent  on  the  floor,  with 
only  one  article  of  attire  to  separate  him  from  the 
condition  in  which  Archimedes,  according  to  the 
popular  story,  shouted  the  same  triumphant  cry. 
He  had  discovered  a  very  remarkable  anachronism 
in  the  commonly  received  histories  of  a  very  impor 
tant  period.  As  he  expounded  it,  turning  up  his 
unearthly  face  from  the  book  with  an  almost  pain 
ful  expression  of  grave  eagerness,  it  occurred  to  me 
that  I  had  seen  something  like  the  scene  in  Dutch 
paintings  of  the  Temptation  of  St.  Anthony. 

Suppose  the  scene  changed  to  a  pleasant  country 
house,  where  the  enlivening  talk  has  made  a  guest 

forget 

"  The  lang  Scots  miles, 
The  mosses,  waters,  slaps,  and  stiles/' 

that  lie  between  him  and  his  place  of  rest.     He 
3 


34  HIS  NATURE. 

must  be  instructed  in  his  course,  but  the  instruction 
reveals  more  difficulties  than  it  removes,  and  there 
is  much  doubt  and  discussion,  which  Papaverius  at 
once  clears  up  as  effectually  as  he  had  ever  dis 
persed  a  cloud  of  logical  sophisms ;  and  this  time 
the  feat  is  performed  by  a  stroke  of  the  thoroughly 
practical,  which  looks  like  inspiration,  —  he  will  ac 
company  the  forlorn  traveller,  and  lead  him  through 
the  difficulties  of  the  way  —  for  have  not  midnight 
wanderings  and  musings  made  him  familiar  with 
all  its  intricacies  ?  Roofed  by  a  huge  wideawake, 
which  makes  his  tiny  figure  look  like  the  stalk  of 
some  great  fungus,  with  a  lantern  of  more  than 
common  dimensions  in  his  hand,  away  he  goes 
down  the  wooded  path,  up  the  steep  bank,  along 
the  brawling  stream,  and  across  the  waterfall  — 
and  ever  as  he  goes  there  comes  from  him  a  con 
tinued  stream  of  talk  concerning  the  philosophy  of 
Immanuel  Kant,  and  other  kindred  matters.  Sure 
ly  if  we  two  were  seen  by  any  human  eyes,  it  must 
have  been  supposed  that  some  gnome,  or  troll,  or 
kelpie  was  luring  the  listener  to  his  doom.  The 
worst  of  such  affairs  as  this  was,  the  consciousness 
that,  when  left,  the  old  man  would  continue  walk 
ing  on  until,  weariness  overcoming  him,  he  would 
take  his  rest,  wherever  that  happened,  like  some 
poor  mendicant.  He  used  to  denounce,  with  his 
most  fervent  eloquence,  that  barbarous  and  brutal 
provision  of  the  law  of  England  which  rendered 
sleeping  in  the  open  air  an  act  of  vagrancy,  and  so 
punishable,  if  the  sleeper  could  not  give  a  satisfac- 


MIGHTY  BOOK-HUNTERS.  35 

tory  account  of  himself — a  thing  which  Papave- 
rius  never  could  give  under  any  circumstances. 
After  all,  I  fear  this  is  an  attempt  to  describe  the 
indescribable.  It  was  the  commonest  of  sayings 
when  any  of  his  friends  were  mentioning  to  each 
other  "his  last,"  and  creating  mutual  shrugs  of 
astonishment,  that,  were  one  to  attempt  to  tell  ail- 
about  him,  no  man  would  believe  it,  so  separate 
would  the  whole  be  from  all  the  normal  conditions 
of  human  nature. 

The  difficulty  becomes  more  inextricable  in  pass 
ing  from  specific  little  incidents  to  an  estimation 
of  the  general  nature  of  the  man.  The  logicians 
lucidly  describe  definition  as  being  per  genus  et  dif- 
ferentiam.  You  have  the  characteristics  in  which 
all  of  the  genus  partake  as  common  ground,  and 
then  you  individualize  your  object  by  showing  in 
what  it  differs  from  the  others  of  the  genus.  But 
we  are  denied  this  standard  for  Papaverius,  so  en 
tirely  did  he  stand  apart,  divested  of  the  ordinary 
characteristics  of  social  man  —  of  those  characteris 
tics  without  which  the  human  race  as  a  body  could 
not  get  on  or  exist.  For  instance,  those  who  knew 
him  a  little  might  call  him  a  loose  man  in  money 
matters ;  those  who  knew  him  closer  laughed  at  the 
idea  of  coupling  any  notion  of  pecuniary  or  other 
like  responsibility  with  his  nature.  You  might  as 
well  attack  the  character  of  the  nightingale,  which 
may  have  nipped  up  your  five-pound  note  and  torn 
it  to  shreds  to  serve  as  nest-building  material. 
Only  immediate  craving  necessities  could  ever  ex- 


36  HIS  NATURE. 

tract  from  him  an  acknowledgment  of  the  common 
vulgar  agencies  by  which  men  subsist  in  civilized 
society ;  and  only  while  the  necessity  lasted  did 
the  acknowledgment  exist.  Take  just  one  exam 
ple,  which  will  render  this  clearer  than  any  gener 
alities.  He  arrives  very  late  at  a  friend's  door, 
and  on  gaining  admission  —  a  process  in  which  he 
often  endured  impediments  —  he  represents,  with 
his  usual  silver  voice  and  measured  rhetoric,  the 
absolute  necessity  of  his  being  then  and  there  in 
vested  with  a  sum  of  money  in  the  current  coin  of 
the  realm  —  the  amount  limited,  from  the  nature 
of  his  necessities,  which  he  very  freely  states,  to 
seven  shillings  and  sixpence.  Discovering,  or  fan 
cying  he  discovers,  signs  that  his  eloquence  is  likely 
to  be  unproductive,  he  is  fortunately  reminded  that, 
should  there  be  any  difficulty  in  connection  with 
security  for  the  repayment  of  the  loan,  he  is  at  that 
moment  in  possession  of  a  document,  which  he  is 
prepared  to  deposit  with  the  lender  —  a  document 
calculated,  he  cannot  doubt,  to  remove  any  feeling 
of  anxiety  which  the  most  prudent  person  could 
experience  in  the  circumstances.  After  a  rummage 
in  his  pockets,  which  develops  miscellaneous  and 
varied,  but  as  yet  by  no  means  valuable  possessions, 
he  at  last  comes  to  the  object  of  his  search,  a  crum 
pled  bit  of  paper,  and  spreads  it  out  —  a  fifty-pound 
bank-note  !  The  friend,  who  knew  him  well,  was 
of  opinion  that,  had  he,  on  delivering  over  the  seven 
shillings  and  sixpence,  received  the  bank-note,  he 
never  would  have  heard  anything  more  of  the 


MIGHTY  BOOK-HUNTERS.  37 

transaction  from  the  other  party.  It  was  also  his 
opinion  that,  before  coming  to  a  personal  friend, 
the  owner  of  the  note  had  made  several  efforts  to 
raise  money  on  it  among  persons  who  might  take 
a  purely  business  view  of  such  transactions  ;  but 
the  lateness  of  the  hour,  and  something  in  the  ap 
pearance  of  the  thing  altogether,  had  induced  these 
mercenaries  to  forget  their  cunning,  and  decline  the 
transaction. 

He  stretched  till  it  broke  the  proverb,  Bis  dat 
qui  cito  dat.  His  giving  was  quick  enough  on  the 
rare  occasions  when  he  had  wherewithal  to  give, 
but  then  the  act  was  final,  and  could  not  be  re 
peated.  If  he  suffered  in  his  own  person  from  this 
peculiarity,  he  suffered  still  more  in  his  sympathies, 
for  he  was  full  of  them  to  all  breathing  creatures, 
and,  like  poor  Goldy,  it  was  agony  to  him  to  hear 
the  beggar's  cry  of  distress,  and  to  hear  it  without 
the  means  of  assuaging  it,  though  in  a  departed 
fifty  pounds  there  were  doubtless  the  elements  for 
appeasing  many  a  street  wail.  All  sums  of  money 
were  measured  by  him  through  the  common  stand 
ard  of  immediate  use ;  and  with  more  solemn  pomp 
of  diction  than  he  applied  to  the  bank-note,  might 
he  inform  you  that,  with  the  gentleman  opposite, 
to  whom  he  had  hitherto  been  entirely  a  stranger, 
but  who  happened  to  be  nearest  to  him  at  the  time 
when  the  exigency  occurred  to  him,  he  had  just 
succeeded  in  negotiating  a  loan  of  "twopence." 
He  was  and  is  a  great  authority  in  political  econ 
omy.  I  have  known  great  anatomists  and  physiol- 


38  HIS  NATURE. 

ogists  as  careless  of  their  health  as  he  was  of  his 
purse,  whence  I  have  inferred  that  something  more 
than  a  knowledge  of  the  abstract  truth  of  political 
economy  is  necessary  to  keep  some  men  from  pecu 
niary  imprudence,  and  that  something  more  than  a 
knowledge  of  the  received  principles  of  physiology 
is  necessary  to  bring  others  into  a  course  of  perfect 
sobriety  and  general  obedience  to  the  laws  of  health. 
Further,  Papaverius  had  an  extraordinary  insight 
into  practical  human  life ;  not  merely  in  the  ab 
stract,  but  in  the  concrete ;  not  merely  as  a  philos 
opher  of  human  nature,  but  as  one  who  saw  into 
those  who  passed  him  in  the  walk  of  life  with  the 
kind  of  intuition  attributed  to  expert  detectives  — 
a  faculty  that  is  known  to  have  belonged  to  more 
than  one  dreamer,  and  is  one  of  the  mysteries  in 
the  nature  of  J.  J.  Rousseau ;  and,  by  the  way,  like 
Rousseau's,  his  handwriting  was  clear,  angular,  and 
un impassioned,  and  not  less  uniform  and  legible 
than  printing  —  as  if  the  medium  of  conveying 
so  noble  a  thing  as  thought  ought  to  be  carefully, 
symmetrically,  and  decorously  constructed,  let  all 
other  material  things  be  as  neglectfully  and  scorn 
fully  dealt  with  as  may  be. 

This  is  a  long  proemium  to  the  description  of  his 
characteristics  as  a  book-hunter  —  but  these  can  be 
briefly  told.  Not  for  him  were  the  common  enjoy 
ments  and  excitements  of  the  pursuit.  He  cared 
not  to  add  volume  unto  volume,  and  heap  up  the 
relics  of  the  printing-press.  All  the  external  nice 
ties  about  pet  editions,  peculiarities  of  binding  or  of 


MIGHTY  BOOK-HUNTERS.  39 

printing,  rarity  itself,  were  to  him  as  if  they  were 
not.  His  pursuit,  indeed,  was  like  that  of  the 
savage  who  seeks  but  to  appease  the  hunger  of  the 
moment.  If  he  catch  a  prey  just  sufficient  for  his 
desires,  it  is  well ;  yet  he  will  not  hesitate  to  bring 
down  the  elk  or  the  buffalo,  and,  satiating  himself 
with  the  choicer  delicacies,  abandon  the  bulk  of 
the  carcass  to  the  wolves  or  the  vultures.  So  of 
Papaverius.  If  his  intellectual  appetite  were  crav 
ing  after  some  passage  in  the  OEdipus,  or  in  the 
Medeia,  or  in  Plato's  Republic,  he  would  be  quite 
contented  with  the  most  tattered  and  valueless  frag 
ment  of  the  volume  if  it  contained  what  he  wanted  ; 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  he  would  not  hesitate  to 
seize  upon  your  tall  copy  in  russia  gilt  and  tooled. 
Nor  would  the  exemption  of  an  editio  princeps  from 
everyday  sordid  work  restrain  his  sacrilegious  hands. 
If  it  should  contain  the  thing  he  desires  to  see,  what 
is  to  hinder  him  from  wrenchino:  out  the  twentieth 

O 

volume  of  your  Encyclopedic  Metlwdique  or  ErscJi 
und  G-ruber^  leaving  a  vacancy  like  an  extracted 
front  tooth,  and  carrying  it  off  to  his  den  of  Cacus  ? 
If  you  should  mention  the  matter  to  any  vulgar- 
mannered  acquaintance  given  to  the  unhallowed 
practice  of  jeering,  he  would  probably  touch  his 
nose  with  his  extended  palm  and  say,  "  Don't  you 
wish  you  may  get  it  ?  "  True,  the  world  at  large 
has  gained  a  brilliant  essay  on  Euripides  or  Plato. 
—  but  what  is  that  to  the  rightful  owner  of  the  lost 
sheep  ? 

The  learned  world  may  very  fairly  be  divided 


40  SIS  NATURE. 

into  those  who  return  the  books  borrowed  by  them, 
and  those  who  do  not.  Papaverius  belonged  decid 
edly  to  the  latter  order.  A  friend  addicted  to  the 
marvellous  boasts  that,  under  the  pressure  of  a  call 
by  a  public  library  to  replace  a  mutilated  book  with 
a  new  copy,  which  would  have  cost  £30,  he  recov 
ered  a  volume  from  Papaverius,  through  the  agency 
of  a  person  specially  bribed  and  authorized  to  take 
any  necessary  measures,  insolence  and  violence  ex- 
cepted  —  but  the  power  of  extraction  that  must 
have  been  employed  in  such  a  process  excites  very 
painful  reflections.  Some  legend,  too,  there  is  of  a 
book  creditor  having  forced  his  way  into  the  Cacus 
den,  and  there  seen  a  sort  of  rubble-work  inner  wall 
of  volumes,  with  their  edges  outwards,  while  others, 
bound  and  unbound,  the  plebeian  sheepskin  and  the 
aristocratic  russian,  were  squeezed  into  certain  tubs 
drawn  from  the  washing  establishment  of  a  confid 
ing  landlady.  In  other  instances  the  book  has  been 
recognized  at  large,  greatly  enhanced  in  value  by  a 
profuse  edging  of  manuscript  notes  from  a  gifted  pen 
—  a  phenomenon  calculated  to  bring  into  practical 
use  the  speculations  of  the  civilians  about  pictures 
painted  on  other  people's  panels.1  What  became 
of  all  his  waifs  and  strays,  it  might  be  well  not  to 
inquire  too  curiously.  If  he  ran  short  of  legitimate 

1  "  Si  quis  in  aliena  tabula  pinxerit,  quidam  putant,  tabulara 
picturae  cedere  :  aliis  videtur  picturam  (qualiscunque  sit)  tabulae 
cedere :  sed  nobis  videtur  melius  esse  tabulam  pictura  cedere. 
Ridiculum  est  enim  pieturam  Apellis  vel  Parrhasii  in  accessio- 
nem  vilissima)  tabulae  cedere."  —  Inst.  ii.  1,  34. 


MIGHTY  BOOK-HUNTERS.  41 

tabula  raza  to  write  on,  do  you  think  he  would  hesi 
tate  to  tear  out  the  most  convenient  leaves  of  any 
broad-margined  book,  whether  belonging  to  him 
self  or  another  ?  Nay,  it  is  said  he  once  gave 
in  "  copy  "  written  on  the  edges  of  a  tall  octavo, 
Somnium  Sdpionis ;  and  as  he  did  not  obliterate 
the  original  matter,  the  printer  was  rather  puz 
zled,  and  made  a  funny  jumble  between  the  letter 
press  Latin  and  the  manuscript  English.  All  these 
things  were  the  types  of  an  intellectual  vitality 
which  despised  and  thrust  aside  all  that  was  gross 
or  material  in  that  wherewith  it  came  in  contact. 
Surely  never  did  the  austerities  of  monk  or  ancho 
rite  so  entirely  cast  all  these  away  as  his  peculiar 
nature  removed  them  from  him.  It  may  be  ques 
tioned  if  he  ever  knew  what  it  was  "  to  eat  a  good 
dinner,"  or  could  even  comprehend  the  nature  of 
such  a  felicity.  Yet  in  all  the  sensuous  nerves 
which  connect  as  it  were  the  body  with  the  ideal, 
he  was  painfully  susceptible.  Hence  a  false  quan 
tity  or  a  wrong  note  in  music  was  agony  to  him ; 
and  it  is  remembered  with  what  ludicrous  solem 
nity  he  apostrophized  his  unhappy  fate  as  one  over 
whom  a  cloud  of  the  darkest  despair  had  just  been 
drawn  —  a  peacock  had  come  to  live  within  hear 
ing  distance  from  him,  and  not  only  the  terrific 
yells  of  the  accursed  biped  pierced  him  to  the  soul, 
but  the  continued  terror  of  their  recurrence  kept 
his  nerves  in  agonizing  tension  during  the  intervals 
of  silence. 

Peace  be  with  his  gentle  and  kindly  spirit,  now 


42  HIS  NATURE. 

for  some  time  separated  from  its  grotesque  and 
humble  tenement  of  clay.  It  is  both  right  and 
pleasant  to  say  that  the  characteristics  here  spoken 
of  were  not  those  of  his  latter  days.  In  these  he 
was  tended  by  affectionate  hands  ;  and  I  have 
always  thought  it  a  wonderful  instance  of  the 
power  of  domestic  care  and  management  that, 
through  the  ministrations  of  a  devoted  offspring, 
this  strange  being  was  so  cared  for,  that  those 
who  came  in  contact  with  him  then,  and  then 
only,  might  have  admired  him  as  the  patriarchal 
head  of  an  agreeable  and  elegant  household. 

Let  us  now,  for  the  sake  of  variety,  summon  up 
a  spirit  of  another  order  —  Magnus  Lucullus,  Esq. 
of  Grand  Priory.  He  is  a  man  with  a  presence  — 
tall,  and  a  little  portly,  with  a  handsome  pleasant 
countenance  looking  hospitality  and  kindliness  to 
wards  friends,  and  a  quiet  but  not  easily  solvable 
reserve  towards  the  rest  of  the  world.  He  has  no 
literary  pretensions,  but  you  will  not  talk  long  with 
him  without  finding  that  he  is  a  scholar,  and  a  ripe 
and  good  one.  He  is  complete  and  magnificent  in 
all  his  belongings,  only,  as  no  man's  qualities  and 
characteristics  are  of  perfectly  uniform  balance  and 
parallel  action,  his  library  is  the  sphere  in  which 
his  disposition  for  the  complete  and  the  magnificent 
has  most  profusely  developed  itself. 

As  you  enter  its  Gothic  door  a  sort  of  indistinct 
slightly  musky  perfume,  like  that  said  to  frequent 
Oriental  bazaars,  hovers  around.  Everything  is 
of  perfect  finish  —  the  mahogany-railed  gallery  — 


MIGHTY  BOOK-HUNTERS.  43 

the  tiny  ladders  —  the  broad-winged  lecterns,  with 
leathern  cushions  on  the  edges  to  keep  the  wood 
from  grazing  the  rich  bindings  —  the  books  them 
selves,  each  shelf  uniform  with  its  facings  or  rather 
backings,  like  well-dressed  lines  at  a  review.  Their 
owner  does  not  profess  to  indulge  much  in  quaint 
monstrosities,  though  many  a  book  of  rarity  is 
there.  In  the  first  place,  he  must  have  the  best 
and  most  complete  editions,  whether  common  or 
rare ;  and,  in  the  second  place,  they  must  be  in 
perfect  condition.  All  the  classics  are  there  —  one 
complete  set  of  Valpy's  in  good  russia,  and  many 
separate  copies  of  each,  valuable  for  text  or  annota 
tion.  The  copies  of  Bayle,  Moreri,  the  Trevoux 
Dictionary,  Stephens's  Lexicon,  Du  Cange,  Mabil- 
lon's  Antiquities,  the  Benedictine  historians,  the 
Bolandists'  Lives  of  the  Saints,  Grsevius  and  Gro- 
novius,  and  heavy  books  of  that  order,  are  in  their 
old  original  morocco,  without  a  scratch  or  abrasure, 
gilt-edged,  vellum-jointed,  with  their  backs  blazing 
in  tooled  gold.  Your  own  dingy  well-thumbed 
Bayle  or  Moreri  possibly  cost  you  two  or  three 
pounds,  his  cost  forty  or  fifty.  Further,  in  these 
affluent  shelves  may  be  found  those  great  costly 
works  which  cross  the  border  of  "three  figures," 
and  of  which  only  one  or  two  of  the  public  libra 
ries  can  boast,  such  as  the  Celebri  Famiglie  Italiane 
of  Litta,  Denon's  Egypt,  the  great  French  work 
on  the  arts  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  the  like ;  and 
many  is  the  scholar  who,  unable  to  gratify  his 
cravings  elsewhere,  has  owed  it  to  Lucullus  that 


44  BIS  NATURE. 

he  has  seen  something  he  was  in  search  after  in  one 
of  these  great  books,  and  has  been  able  to  put  it  to 
public  use. 

Throughout  the  establishment  there  is  an  ap 
pearance  of  care  and  order,  but  not  of  restraint. 
Some  inordinately  richly-bound  volumes  have  spe 
cial  grooves  or  niches  for  themselves  lined  with 
soft  cloth,  as  if  they  had  delicate  lungs,  and  must 
be  kept  from  catching  cold.  But  even  these  are 
not  guarded  from  the  hand  of  the  guest.  Lucullus 
says  his  books  are  at  the  service  of  his  friends ;  and, 
as  a  hint  in  the  same  direction,  he  recommends  to 
your  notice  a  few  volumes  from  the  collection  of  the 
celebrated  Grollier,  the  most  princely  and  liberal 
of  collectors,  on  whose  classic  book-plate  you  find 
the  genial  motto,  "Joannis  Grrollierii  et  amicorum" 
Having  conferred  on  you  the  freedom  of  his  library, 
he  will  not  concern  himself  by  observing  how  you 
use  it.  He  would  as  soon  watch  you  after  dinner 
to  note  whether  you  eschew  common  sherry  and 
show  an  expensive  partiality  for  that  madeira  at 
twelve  pounds  a  dozen,  which  other  men  would 
probably  only  place  on  the  table  when  it  could  be 
well  invested  in  company  worthy  of  the  sacrifice. 
Who  shall  penetrate  the  human  heart,  and  say 
whether  a  hidden  pang  or  gust  of  wrath  has 
vibrated  behind  that  placid  countenance,  if  you 
have  been  seen  to  drop  an  ink-spot  on  the  creamy 
margin  of  the  Mentelin  Virgil,  or  to  tumble  that 
heavy  Aquinas  from  the  ladder  and  dislocate  his 
joints  ?  As  all  the  world  now  knows,  however, 


MIGHTY  BOOK-HUNTERS.  45 

men  assimilate  to  the  conditions  by  which  they 
are  surrounded,  and  we  civilize  our  city  savages  by 
substituting  cleanness  and  purity  for  the  putrescence 
which  naturally  accumulates  in  great  cities.  So,  in 
a  noble  library,  the  visitor  is  enchained  to  reverence 
and  courtesy  by  the  genius  of  the  place.  You  can 
not  toss  about  its  treasures  as  you  would  your  own 
rough  calfs  and  obdurate  hogskins  ;  as  soon  would 
you  be  tempted  to  pull  out  your  meerschaum  and 
punk-box  in  a  cathedral.  It  is  hard  to  say,  but  I 
would  fain  believe  that  even  Papaverius  himself 
might  have  felt  some  sympathetic  touch  from  the 
spotless  perfection  around  him  and  the  noble  re 
liance  of  the  owner ;  and  that  he  might  perhaps 
have  restrained  himself  from  tearing  out  the  most 
petted  rarities,  as  a  wolf  would  tear  a  fat  lamb  from 
the  fold. 

Such,  then,  are  some  "  cases  "  discussed  in  a  sort 
of  clinical  lecture.  It  will  be  seen  that  they  have 
differing  symptoms  —  some  mild  and  genial,  others 
ferocious  and  dangerous.  Before  passing  to  another 
and  the  last  case,  I  propose  to  say  a  word  or  two 
on  some  of  the  minor  specialties  which  characterize 
the  pursuit  in  its  less  amiable  or  dignified  form. 
It  is,  for  instance,  liable  to  be  accompanied  by  an 
affection,  known  also  to  the  agricultural  world  as 
affecting  the  wheat  crop,  and  called  "the  smut." 
Fortunately  this  is  less  prevalent  among  us  than 
the  French,  who  have  a  name  for  the  class  of 
books  affected  by  this  school  of  collectors  in  the 
Bibliotheque  bleue.  There  is  a  sad  story  connected 


46  HZS  NATURE. 

with  this  peculiar  frailty.  A  great  and  high-minded 
scholar  of  the  seventeenth  century  had  a  savage 
trick  played  on  him  by  some  mad  wags,  who  col 
lected  a  quantity  of  the  brutalities  of  which  Latin 
literature  affords  an  endless  supply,  and  published 
them  in  his  name.  He  is  said  not  long  to  have 
survived  this  practical  joke ;  and  one  does  not 
wonder  at  his  sinking  before  such  a  prospect,  if 
he  anticipated  an  age  and  a  race  of  book-buyers 
among  whom  his  great  critical  works  are  forgotten, 
and  his  name  is  known  solely  for  the  spurious  vol 
ume,  sacred  to  infamy,  which  may  be  found  side  by 
side  with  the  works  of  the  author  of  Trimalcion's 
Feast  —  "  par  nobile  fratrum." 

There  is  another  failing,  without  a  leaning  to 
virtue's  side,  to  which  some  collectors  have  been, 
by  reputation  at  least,  addicted  —  a  propensity  to 
obtain  articles  without  value  given  for  them  —  a 
tendency  to  be  larcenish.  It  is  the  culmination, 
indeed,  of  a  sort  of  lax  morality  apt  to  grow  out  of 
the  habits  and  traditions  of  the  class.  Your  true 
collector  —  not  the  man  who  follows  the  occupation 
as  a  mere  expensive  taste,  and  does  not  cater  for 
himself — considers  himself  a  finder  or  discoverer 
rather  than  a  purchaser.  He  is  an  industrious 
prowler  in  unlikely  regions,  and  is  entitled  to  some 
reward  for  his  diligence  and  his  skill.  Moreover, 
it  is  the  essence  of  that  very  skill  to  find  value  in 
those  things  which,  in  the  eye  of  the  ordinary  pos 
sessor,  are  really  worthless.  From  estimating  them 
at  little  value,  and  paying  little  for  them,  the  steps 


MIGHTY  BOOK-HUNTERS.  4? 

are  rather  too  short  to  estimating  them  at  nothing, 
and  paying  nothing  for  them.  What  matters  it, 
a  few  dirty  black-letter  leaves  picked  out  of  that 
volume  of  miscellaneous  trash  —  leaves  which  the 
owner  never  knew  he  had,  and  cannot  miss  — 
which  he  would  not  know  the  value  of,  had  you 
told  him  of  them  ?  What  use  of  putting  notions 
into  the  greedy  barbarian's  head,  as  if  one  were  to 
find  treasures  for  him  ?  And  the  little  pasquinade 
is  so  curious,  and  will  fill  a  gap  in  that  fine  collec 
tion  so  nicely  !  The  notions  of  the  collector  about 
such  spoil  are  indeed  the  converse  of  those  which 
Cassio  professed  to  hold  about  his  good  name,  for 
the  scrap  furtively  removed  is  supposed  in  no  way 
to  impoverish  the  loser,  while  it  makes  the  recipient 
rich  indeed.1 

Those  habits  of  the  prowler  which  may  gradually 
lead  a  mind  not  strengthened  by  strong  principle 
into  this  downward  career,  are  hit  with  his  usual 
vivacity  and  wonderful  truth  by  Scott.  The  speak 
er  is  our  delightful  friend  Oldenbuck  of  Monkbarns, 

1  [It  is  not  Cassio  but  lago  who  says  that  good  name  in  man 
and  woman  is  the  immediate  jewel  of  their  souls,  the  loss  of 
which  enriches  not  others,  but  makes  them  poor  indeed.  The 
error  is  worth  correcting ;  for  there  is  no  more  exquisite  touch 
of  art,  no  finer  exhibition  of  subtle  and  profound  knowledge  of 
man  than  the  teaching  by  the  lips  of  this  supremest  scoundrel 
the  wide  difference  between  the  intellectual  perception  of  a 
moral  sentiment  and  its  actual  possession.  Joseph  Surface  is 
the  fruit  of  a  bold  and  clumsy  imitation  of  this  single  trait  of 
lago's  character.  lago  is  a  human  creature,  and  is  therefore  a 
complex  machine.  Joseph  Surface  is  an  attribute  of  humanity 
made  to  wear  clothes  and  do  the  work  of  a  puppet.  —  W.] 


48  ffrs  NATURE. 

the  Antiquary,  and  it  has  just  enough  of  confession 
in  it  to  show  a  consciousness  that  the  narrator  has 
gone  over  dangerous  ground,  and,  if  we  did  not  see 
that  the  narrative  is  tinged  with  some  exaggeration, 
has  trodden  a  little  beyond  the  limits  of  what  is 
gentlemanly  and  just. 

"  See  this  bundle  of  ballads,  not  one  of  them 
later  than  1700,  and  some  of  them  a  hundred  years 
older.  I  wheedled  an  old  woman  out  of  these,  who 
loved  them  better  than  her  psalm-book.  Tobacco, 
sir,  snuff,  and  the  Complete  Syren^  were  the  equiva 
lent  !  For  that  mutilated  copy  of  the  Complaynt  of 
Scotland  I  sat  out  the  drinking  of  two  dozen  bottles 
of  strong  ale  with  the  late  learned  proprietor,  who 
in  gratitude  bequeathed  it  to  me  by  his  last  will. 
These  little  Elzevirs  are  the  memoranda  and  tro 
phies  of  many  a  walk  by  night  and  morning  through 
the  Cowgate,  the  Canongate,  the  Bow,  St.  Mary's 
Wynd  —  wherever,  in  fine,  there  were  to  be  found 
brokers  and  trokers,  those  miscellaneous  dealers  in 
things  rare  and  curious.  How  often  have  I  stood 
haggling  on  a  halfpenny,  lest  by  a  too  ready  acqui 
escence  in  the  dealer's  first  price  he  should  be  led 
to  suspect  the  value  I  set  upon  the  article  !  How 
have  I  trembled  lest  some  passing  stranger  should 
chop  in  between  me  and  the  prize,  and  regarded 
each  poor  student  of  divinity  that  stopped  to  turn 
over  the  books  at  the  stall  as  a  rival  amateur  or 
prowling  bookseller  in  disguise  !  And  then,  Mr. 
Lovel  —  the  sly  satisfaction  with  which  one  pays 
the  consideration,  and  pockets  the  article,  affecting 


MIGHTY  BOOK-HUNTERS.  49 

a  cold  indifference  while  the  hand  is  trembling  with 
pleasure  !  Then  to  dazzle  the  eyes  of  our  wealthier 
and  emulous  rivals  by  showing  them  such  a  treas 
ure  as  this  (displaying  a  little  black  smoked  book 
about  the  size  of  a  primer)  —  to  enjoy  their  surprise 
and  envy  ;  shrouding,  meanwhile,  under  a  veil  of 
mysterious  consciousness,  our  own  superior  knowl 
edge  and  dexterity  ;  —  these,  my  young  friend  — 
these  are  the  white  moments  of  life,  that  repay  the 
toil  and  pains  and  sedulous  attention  which  our  pro 
fession,  above  all  others,  so  peculiarly  demands." 

There  is  a  nice  subtle  meaning  in  the  worthy 
man  calling  his  weakness  his  "  profession,"  but  it 
is  in  complete  keeping  with  the  mellow  Teniers- 
like  tone  of  the  whole  picture.  Ere  we  have  done 
we  shall  endeavor  to  show  that  the  grubber  among 
book-stalls  has,  with  other  grubs  or  grubbers,  his 
useful  place  in  the  general  dispensation  of  the 
world.  But  his  is  a  pursuit  exposing  him  to  moral 
perils,  which  call  for  peculiar  efforts  of  self-restraint 
to  save  him  from  them ;  and  the  moral  Scott  holds 
forth  —  for  a  sound  moral  he  always  has  —  is,  If 
you  go  as  far  as  Jonathan  Oldenbuck  did  —  and  I 
don't  advise  you  to  go  so  far,  but  hint  that  you 
should  stop  earlier  —  say  to  yourself,  Thus  far,  and 
no  farther. 

So  much  for  a  sort  of  clinical  exposition  of  the 
larcenous  propensities  which  accompany  book-hunt 
ing.1  There  is  another  peculiar,  and,  it  may  be 

1  [Nothing  could  be  more  correct  or  in  better  tone  than  the 
author's  remarks  upon  these  larcenous  propensities,  the  exist- 
4 


50  BIS  NATURE. 

said,  vicious  propensity,  exhibited  occasionally  in 
conjunction  with  the  pursuit.  It  is  entirely  antag 
onistic  in  spirit  to  the  tenth  commandment,  and 
consists  in  a  desperate  coveting  of  the  neighbor's 
goods,  and  a  satisfaction,  not  so  much  in  possessing 
for  one's  self,  as  in  dispossessing  him.  This  spirit 
is  said  to  burn  with  still  fiercer  flame  in  the  breasts 
of  those  whose  pursuit  would  externally  seem  to  be 
the  most  innocent  in  the  world,  and  the  least  exci- 
tive  of  the  bad  passions  —  namely,  among  flower- 
fanciers.  From  some  mysterious  cause,  it  has  been 

ence  of  which  he  recognizes  in  such  a  candid  matter-of-course 
way.  There  is,  too,  a  genuine  air  about  what  he  says  which  is 
unmistakable.  But  we  on  this  side  of  the  water,  while  confess 
ing  to  our  full  share  of  human  frailty,  cannot  but  be  unpleas 
antly  surprised  at  the  frequent  imputations  upon  the  personal 
honor,  in  this  respect,  of  men  of  letters  in  Great  Britain,  which 
we  see  publicly  made  by  members  of  the  fraternity,  and  plainly 
without  fear  of  contradiction.  Dreadful  stories  of  the  purloin 
ing  of  rare  manuscripts  and  books,  and  that  not  by  needy  thieves 
who  steal  to  sell  or  pawn,  (for  books  of  course  are  little  more 
than  other  goods  exempt  from  ordinary  theft,)  but  by  men  of 
position  in  literature,  who  abuse  the  trust  placed  in  them  to 
despoil  even  private  collections  only  for  the  sake  of  satisfy 
ing  their  greed  of  what  is  scarce  and  curious.  There  are  sev 
eral  men  whose  reputations  extend  beyond  the  limits  of  the 
British  empire  who  are  resting  under  these  accusations.  These 
stories  are  almost  incredible  to  us.  Mayhap  our  men  of  letters 
have  not  yet  attained  a  sufficient  appreciation  of  the  value  of 
old  books  to  be  subjected  to  the  temptations  which  assail  their 
brethren  of  the  mother-country.  But  we  shall,  nevertheless, 
mourn  the  day  when  an  advance  in  learning  shows  itself  in 
guch  a  way  as  to  invite  restraint  of  that  perfect  freedom  with 
which  the  owner  or  keeper  of  a  library  in  this  country  now 
admits  to  his  shelves  any  man  of  letters,  although  a  perfect 
stranger,  who  is  known  to  him  even  by  reputation.  —  W.J 


MIGHTY  BOOK-HUNTERS.  51 

known  to  develop  itself  most  flagrantly  among 
tulip-collectors,  insomuch  that  there  are  legends  of 
Dutch  devotees  of  this  pursuit  who  have  paid  their 
thousands  of  dollars  for  a  duplicate  tuber,  that  they 
might  have  the  satisfaction  of  crushing  it  under 
the  heel.1  This  line  of  practice  is  not  entirely  alien 
to  the  book-hunter.  Dibdin  warmed  his  convivial 
guests  at  a  comfortable  fire,  fed  by  the  woodcuts 
which  had  been  printed  from  in  the  impression  of 
the  Bibliographical  Decameron.  It  was  a  quaint 
fancy,  and  deemed  to  be  a  pretty  and  appropriate 
form  of  hospitality,  while  it  effectually  assured  the 
subscribers  to  his  costly  volumes  that  the  vulgar 
world  who  buy  cheap  books  was  definitely  cut  off 
from  participating  in  their  privileges. 

Let  us,  however,  summon  a  more  potent  spirit  of 
this  order.  He  is  a  different  being  altogether  from 
those  gentle  shades  who  have  flitted  past  us  already. 

1  "  The  great  point  of  view  in  a  collector  is  to  possess  that  not 
possessed  by  any  other.  It  is  said  of  a  collector  lately  deceased, 
that  he  used  to  purchase  scarce  prints  at  enormous  prices,  in 
order  to  destroy  them,  and  thereby  render  the  remaining  im 
pressions  more  scarce  and  valuable." — GROSE'S  Olio,  p.  57.  I 
do  not  know  to  whom  Grose  alludes ;  but  it  strikes  me,  in  realiz 
ing  a  man  given  to  such  propensities  —  taking  them  as  a  reality 
and  not  a  joke  —  that  it  would  be  interesting  to  know  how,  in 
his  moments  of  serious  thought,  he  could  contemplate  his  favor 
ite  pursuit —  as,  for  instance,  when  the  conscientious  physician 
may  have  thought  it  necessary  to  warn  him  in  time  of  the  ap 
proaching  end  —  how  he  could  reckon  up  his  good  use  of  the 
talents  bestowed  on  him,  counting  among  them  his  opportunities 
for  the  encouragement  of  art,  or  an  elevator  and  improver  of 
the  human  race. 


52  HIS  NATURE. 

He  was  known  in  the  body  by  many  hard  names, 
such  as  the  Vampire,  the  Dragon,  &c.  He  was  an 
Irish  absentee,  or,  more  accurately,  a  refugee,  since 
he  had  made  himself  so  odious  on  his  ample  estate 
that  he  could  not  live  there.  How  on  earth  he 
should  have  set  about  collecting  books,  is  one  of  the 
inscrutable  mysteries  which  ever  surround  the  diag 
nosis  of  this  peculiar  malady.  Setting  aside  his 
using  his  books  by  reading  them  as  out  of  the  ques 
tion,  he  yet  was  never  known  to  indulge  in  that 
fondling  and  complacent  examination  of  their  exte 
rior  and  general  condition,  which,  to  Inchrule  and 
others  of  his  class,  seemed  to  afford  the  highest 
gratification  that,  as  sojourners  through  this  vale  of 
tears,  it  was  their  lot  to  enjoy.  Nor  did  he  luxu 
riate  in  the  collective  pride  —  like  that  of  David 
when  he  numbered  his  people  —  of  beholding  how 
his  volumes  increased  in  multitude,  and  ranged 
with  one  another,  like  well-sized  and  properly- 
dressed  troops,  along  an  ample  area  of  book-shelves. 
His  collection  —  if  it  deserved  the  name  —  was 
piled  in  great  heaps  in  garrets,  cellars,  and  ware- 
rooms,  like  unsorted  goods.  They  were  accumu 
lated,  in  fact,  not  so  much  that  the  owner  might 
have  them,  as  that  other  people  might  not.  If 
there  were  a  division  of  the  order  into  positive,  or 
those  who  desire  to  make  collections  —  and  nega 
tive,  or  those  who  desire  to  prevent  them  being 
made,  his  case  would  properly  belong  to  the  latter. 
Imagine  the  consternation  created  in  a  small  circle 
of  collectors  by  a  sudden  alighting  among  them  of 


MIGHTY  BOOK-HUNTERS.  53 

a  Jieluo  librorum  with  such  propensities,  armed  with 
illimitable  means,  enabling  him  to  desolate  the  land 
like  some  fiery  dragon  !  What  became  of  the  cha 
otic  mass  of  literature  he  had  brought  together  no 
one  knew.  It  was  supposed  to  be  congenial  to  his 
nature  to  have  made  a  great  bonfire  of  it  before  he 
left  the  world;  but  a  little  consideration  showed 
such  a  feat  to  be  impossible  :  for  books  may  be 
burnt  in  detail  by  extraneous  assistance,  but  it  is 
a  curious  fact  that,  combustible  as  paper  is  supposed 
to  be,  books  won't  burn.  If  you  doubt  this,  pitch 
that  folio  Swammerdam  or  Puffendorf  into  a  good 
rousing  fire,  and  mark  the  result. 

No  —  it  is  probable  that,  stored  away  in  some 
forgotten  repositories,  these  miscellaneous  relics  still 
remain  ;  and  should  they  be  brought  forth,  some 
excitement  might  be  created  ;  for,  ignorant  as  the 
monster  was,  he  had  an  instinct  for  knowing  what 
other  people  wanted,  and  was  thus  enabled  to 
snatch  rare  and  curious  volumes  from  the  grasp  of 
systematic  collectors.  It  was  his  great  glory  to  get 
hold  of  a  unique  book  and  shut  it  up.  There  were 
known  to  be  just  two  copies  of  a  spare  quarto, 
called  Rout  upon  Rout,  or  the  RabUers  Rabbled, 
by  Felix  Nixon,  Gent.  He  possessed  one  copy  ; 
the  other,  by  indomitable  perseverance,  he  also  got 
hold  of,  and  then  his  heart  was  glad  within  him  ; 
and  he  felt  it  glow  with  well-merited  pride  when 
an  accomplished  scholar,  desiring  to  complete  an 
epoch  in  literary  history  on  which  that  book  threw 
some  light,  besought  the  owner  to  allow  him  a  sight 


54  HIS  NATURE. 

of  it,  were  it  but  for  a  few  minutes,  and  the  request 
was  refused.  "  I  might  as  well  ask  him,"  said  the 
animal,  who  was  rather  proud  of  his  firmness  than 
ashamed  of  his  churlishness,  "  to  make  me  a  present 
of  his  brains  and  reputation."  1 

It  was  among  his  pleasant  ways  to  attend  book- 
sales,  there  to  watch  the  biddings  of  persons  on 
whose  judgment  he  relied,  and  cut  in  as  the  con 
test  was  becoming  critical.  This  practice  soon  be 
trayed  to  those  he  had  so  provoked  the  chinks  in 
the  monster's  armor.  He  was  assailable  and  pun 
ishable  at  last,  then,  this  potent  monster  ;  but  the 
attack  must  be  made  warily  and  cautiously.  Ac 
cordingly,  impartial  bystanders,  ignorant  of  the 
plot,  began  to  observe  that  he  was  degenerating  by 

1  [Having  the  note  on  page  49  in  mind,  and  with  eyes  quite 
open  to  the  risk  of  a  charge  of  pharisaic  gratitude,  I  here  re 
mark  upon  another  restriction  upon  the  use  of  books  to  which 
our  British  kinsmen  are  subjected,  and  from  which  we  are  free. 
No  one  can  have  read  much  in  London  reprints  of  scarce  books 
or  new  editions  of  old  authors,  without  noticing  evidence  of  the  fre 
quent  inaccessibility  to  editorial  seekers  of  well-known  rare  or 
unique  copies,  which  were  absolutely  necessary  to  the  satisfac 
tory  performance  of  their  labors.  The  students  of  this  depart 
ment  of  literature  have  again  and  again  seen  editorial  short-com 
ings  excused,  in  a  preface,  by  the  statement  that  the  possessor 
of  a  certain  unique  copy  of  an  old  edition  could  not  be  persuaded 
to  allow  the  editor  to  make  a  transcript  from  it,  or  even  to  consult 
it.  Nor  is  this  aspect  of  affairs  (so  unpleasant  to  us)  much  mod 
ified  by  the  profuse  and  particular  thanks  of  editors  in  the  many 
cases  in  which  an  opposite  course  was  pursued.  These,  hardly 
less  than  the  apologies,  are  signs  of  an  exclusiveness  for  mere 
exclusion's  sake,  which  surely  show  that  where  they  are  ex 
pected  the  generous  influence  of  letters  is  counteracted  and  cir 
cumscribed  by  some  power  which  here  is  quite  unknown.  In 


MIGHTY  BOOK-HUNTERS.  55 

degrees  in  the  rank  of  his  purchases,  and  at  last 
becoming,  utterly  reckless,  buying,  at  the  prices  of 
the  sublimest  rarities,  common  works  of  ordinary 
literature  to  be  found  in  every  book-shop.  Such 
was  the  result  of  judiciously  drawing  him  on,  by 
biddings  for  valueless  books,  on  the  part  of  those 
whom  he  had  outbid  in  the  objects  of  their  desire. 
Auctioneers  were  surprised  at  the  gradual  change 
coming  over  the  book-market ;  and  a  few  fortunate 
people  obtained  considerable  prices  for  articles  they 
were  told  to  expect  nothing  for.  But  this  farce,  of 
course,  did  not  last  long ;  and  whether  or  not  he 
found  out  that  he  had  been  beaten  at  his  own 
weapons,  the  devouring  monster  disappeared  as 
mysteriously  as  he  had  come. 

all  my  intercourse  with  lovers  of  books,  whether  they  were  pro 
fessionally  men  of  letters  or  not,  I  have  heard  but  of  a  single  in 
stance  in  which  the  possessor  of  a  collection,  or  a  copy,  however 
rare  and  costly,  did  not  give  any  properly  introduced  student  the 
right  of  free  warren  over  his  shelves.  I  have  known  men  who 
never  had  seen  each  other,  or  held  any  previous  communication, 
write  for  the  loan  of  a  volume  of  which  there  was  but  a  single 
copy  in  the  country,  and  not  half  a  dozen  in  the  world ;  and  I 
never  knew  the  request  refused,  although  the  book  had  often  to 
be  sent  more  than  a  hundred  miles  by  express,  and  sometimes 
to  be  kept  for  three  months  and  more.  Nor  did  I  ever  know  of 
an  instance  in  which  there  was  cause  given  to  regret  this  cour 
tesy  ; —  for  which,  by  the  way,  there  is  not  much  bowing  and 
hat-doffing  in  type,  for  very  shame's  sake ;  it  being  taken  for 
granted  that  any  man  who  has  enough  of  the  humanities  to  ob 
tain  and  to  prize  a  good  book  is  entirely  willing  that  all  the 
world,  and  particularly  the  men  of  his  fellowship,  should  share 
his  good  fortune.  —  W.] 


56  HIS  NATURE. 


UCH  incidents  bring  vividly  before  the 
eye  the  scenes  in  which  they  took  place 
long  long  ago.  If  any  one  in  his  early 
youth  has  experienced  some  slight  symp 
toms  of  the  malady  under  discussion,  which  his 
constitution,  through  a  tough  struggle  with  the 
world,  and  a  busy  training  in  after  life,  has  been 
enabled  to  throw  off,  he  will  yet  look  back  with 
fond  associations  to  the  scenes  of  his  dangerous  in 
dulgence.  The  auction-room  is  often  the  centre  of 
fatal  attraction  towards  it,  just  as  the  billiard-room 
and  the  rouge-et-noir  table  are  to  excesses  of  another 
kind.  There  is  that  august  tribunal,  over  which  at 
one  time  reigned  Scott's  genial  friend  Ballantyne, 
succeeded  by  the  sententious  Tait,  himself  a  man  of 
taste  and  a  collector,  and  now  presided  over  by  the 
great  Nisbet.  I  bow  with  deferential  awe  to  the 
august  tribunal  before  which  so  vast  a  mass  of  lit 
erature  has  changed  hands,  and  where  the  future 
destinies  of  so  many  thousands  —  or,  shall  it  be 
rather  said,  millions  —  of  volumes  have  been  decided, 
each  carrying  with  it  its  own  little  train  of  suspense 
and  triumph. 

More  congenial,  however,  in  my  recollection,  is 
that  remote  and  dingy  hall  where  rough  Carfrae, 
like  Thor,  flourished  his  thundering  hammer.  There 
it  was  that  one  first  marked,  with  a  sort  of  sympa- 


REMINISCENCES.  57 

thetic  awe,  the  strange  and  varied  influence  of  their 
peculiar  maladies  on  the  book-hunters  of  the  last 
generation.  There  it  was  that  one  first  handled 
those  pretty  little  pets,  the  Elzevir  classics,  a  sort  of 
literary  bantams,  which  are  still  dear  to  memory, 
and  awaken  old  associations  by  their  dwarfish  ribbed 
backs  like  those  of  ponderous  folios,  and  their  ex 
quisite,  but  now,  alas  !  too  minute  type.  The  eye 
sight  that  could  formerly  peruse  them  with  ease  has 
suffered  decay,  but  they  remain  unchanged  ;  and  in 
this  they  are  unlike  to  many  other  objects  of  early 
interest.  Children,  flowers,  animals,  scenery  even, 
all  have  undergone  mutation,  but  no  perceptible 
shade  of  change  has  passed  over  these  little  remind 
ers  of  old  times.1 

There  it  was  that  one  first  could  comprehend  how 
a  tattered  dirty  fragment  of  a  book  once  common 
might  be  worth  a  deal  more  than  its  weight  in  gold. 
There  it  was  too,  that,  seduced  by  bad  example,  the 
present  respected  pastor  of  Ardsnischen  purchased 
that  beautiful  Greek  New  Testament,  by  Jansen  of 
Amsterdam,  which  he  loved  so,  in  the  freshness  of 
its  acquisition,  that  he  took  it  with  him  to  church, 

1  [This  is  but  partly  true.  The  inexperienced  collector  of 
books,  and  especially  of  the  ancient  classics,  should  not  be 
tempted  into  paying  high  prices  for  Elzevir  editions,  unless  in 
a  case  where  there  is  something  particularly  attractive  to  his 
taste  in  the  individual  copy,  and  he  pays  for  his  whim — for 
which,  alas  !  we  are  all  too  ready.  The  Elzevirs  have  fallen 
much  in  estimation  and  value  of  late  years.  Their  accu 
racy  has  been  found  to  have  been  too  much  vaunted ;  and  the 
page  is  a  bad  one  for  the  eye  ;  not  on  account  of  its  smallness,  or 
poor  press-work,  but  because  of  the  shape  of  the  letter.  —  W.] 


58  MS   NATURE. 

and,  turning  up  the  text,  handed  it  to  a  venerable 
woman  beside  him,  after  the  fashion  of  an  absorbed 
and  absent  student  who  was  apt  to  forget  whether 
he  was  reading  Greek  or  English.  The  presiding 
genius  of  the  place,  with  his  strange  accent,  odd 
sayings,  and  angular  motions,  accompanied  by  good- 
natured  grunts  of  grotesque  wrath,  became  a  sort  of 
household  figure.  The  dorsal  breadth  of  pronun 
ciation  with  which  he  would  expose  u  Mr.  Ivory's 
Ersldne^  used  to  produce  a  titter  which  he  was 
always  at  a  loss  to  understand.  Though  not  the 
fashionable  mart  where  all  the  thorough  libraries 
in  perfect  condition  went  to  be  hammered  off — 
though  it  was  rather  a  place  where  miscellaneous 
collections  were  sold,  and  therefore  bargains  might 
be  expected  by  those  who  knew  what  they  were 
about  —  yet  sometimes  extraordinary  and  valuable 
collections  of  rare  books  came  under  his  hammer, 
and  created  an  access  of  more  than  ordinary  excite 
ment  among  the  denizens  of  the  place.  On  one  of 
these  occasions  a  succession  of  valuable  fragments 
of  early  English  poetry  brought  prices,  so  high  and 
far  beyond  those  of  ordinary  expensive  books  in  the 
finest  condition,  that  it  seemed  as  if  their  imperfec 
tions  were  their  merit ;  and  the  auctioneer,  mo 
mentarily  carried  off  with  this  feeling,  when  the 
high  prices  began  to  sink  a  little,  remonstrated  thus, 
"  Going  so  low  as  thirty  shillings,  gentlemen,  — 
this  curious  book  —  so  low  as  thirty  shillings  —  and 
quite  imperfect !  "  l 
1  [Let  not  this  occasion  pass  without  brief  tribute  to  that  wit 


REMINISCENCES.  59 

Those  who  frequented  this  howf,  being  generally 
elderly  men,  have  now  nearly  all  departed.     The 

among  literary  auctioneers,  that  ever-welcomed  companion  among 
men  of  letters,  Mr.  John  Keese  ;  —  alas  that  his  bright  eye  is  for 
ever  closed,  his  trenchant  tongue  forever  silent !  It  cannot  be 
but  that  many  of  the  Book-Hunters  who  will  read  this  most 
interesting  history  of  their  species  have  at  some  time  or  other 
pursued  the  objects  of  their  chase  with  him  as  master  of  the 
hunt ;  and  they,  who  have  forgiven  him  even  the  high  prices 
which  he  sometimes  beguiled  them  into  paying,  will  cherish 
the  memory  of  the  man  who  diffused  over  the  dull  and  selfish 
contests  of  the  auction-room,  the  charms  of  innocent,  intellect 
ual  gayety.  The  joke  into  which  the  Scotch  auctioneer  blun 
dered  was  one  of  a  kind  that  he  would  have  struck  out  upon 
the  spur  of  the  occasion.  Little  that  he  said  has  been  preserved ; 
and  little  perhaps  would  bear  preserving.  For,  from  the  neces 
sity  of  the  case,  the  greater  number  of  his  jests,  being  born  of 
the  circumstances  of  the  moment,  died  with  them  ;  and  their 
short-lived  prosperity  lay  in  the  ears  which  heard  them.  His 
knowledge  of  literature,  too,  was  chiefly  that  which  a  man  of 
quick  apprehension  acquires  by  constant  intercourse  with  men 
of  letters.  But  his  ready  and  apt  use  of  it  made  his  compan 
ionship  an  uncloying  pleasure.  The  quickness  of  his  repartee 
was  perhaps  its  greatest  merit.  A  wit  like  him  is  a  loaded  piece, 
which  surely  gives  a  flash  and  a  report,  no  matter  how  dull  a 
finger  pulls  the  trigger.  One  evening  a  little  volume  of  wretched 

religious  poetry,  by  Miss  ,  was   put  up.     Before  a  bid, 

"  Who  was  Miss  ? "  asked  a  book-stall  keeper.     Keese 

glanced  at  the  biographical  sketch:  —  "A  poor  and  pious  girl 
—  who  wrote  poor  and  pious  poetry."  The  book  dropped  dead  ; 
but  the  laugh  which  accompanied  its  fall  raised  the  spirits  of  the 
"company  "  and  told  on  the  subsequent  bidding.  He  was  cour 
ageous,  too,  as  well  as  ready.  At  a  sale  of  unusual  interest,  at 
tention  was  attracted  by  the  presence  and  the  purchases  of  a 
notorious  political  bully,  then  in  office,  and  since  rewarded  with 
a  better  place.  The  creature  was  as  innocent  of  humane  letters 
as  of  humanity  of  any  other  kind,  and  bought  for  some  political 
satrap  of  higher  culture,  in  whose  service  he  was  retained.  He 
claimed  a  very  curious  and  valuable  book  which  had  been 


60  BIS  NATURE. 

thunderer's  hammer,  too,  has  long  been  silenced  by 
the  great  quieter.  One  living  memorial  still  exists 
of  that  scene  —  the  genial  and  then  youthful  assist 
ant,  whose  partiality  for  letters  and  literary  pursuits 
made  him  often  the  monitor  and  kindly  guide  of  the 
raw  student,  and  who  now,  in  a  higher  field,  exer 
cises  a  more  important  influence  on  the  destinies  of 
literature.  I  passed  the  spot  the  other  day — it  was 
not  desolate  and  forsaken,  with  the  moss  growing 
on  the  hearth-stone  ;  on  the  contrary,  it  flared  with 
many  lights  —  a  thronged  gin-palace.  When  one 
heard  the  sounds  that  issued  from  the  old  familiar 
spot,  the  reflection  not  unnaturally  occurred  that, 
after  all,  there  are  worse  pursuits  in  the  world  than 
book-hunting. 

knocked  down  to  the  bid  of  another  person.  This  was  ex 
plained  to  him  in  vain,  and  he  began  at  once  to  be  abusive.  It 
was  then  offered  to  put  up  the  book  again.  But  he  refused 
consent  to  this  arrangement,  and  began  to  threaten,  exclaiming 
that  he  "  asked  justice,  and  meant  to  have  it."  "  Sir,"  instantly 
replied  Keese,  in  a  distinct,  low  voice,  as  he  fixed  his  steel  gray 
eye  upon  the  bully,  who  could  have  torn  his  slight  little  form  to 
pieces,  "  I  know  no  man  who  deserves  justice  more  than  you 
do,  and  I  heartily  wish  that  you  may  get  it."  The  animal's  hide 
was  not  proof  against  that  dart.  He  turned  livid  witli  impotent 
rage,  and  slunk  silently  away.  Keese's  memory  will  last  his  gen 
eration  ;  and,  as  dead  men  are  remembered,  that  is  much.  His 
was  the  kindest  of  hearts,  the  readiest  with  sympathy  and  with 
cheer,  and  with  aid  to  the  very  extent  of  his  ability.  He  helped 
many  a  young  author  into  print,  for  whose  unsalable  books 
when  the  heavy  "  remainders  "  came  under  his  hammer,  even 
his  humor  could  not  extract  the  worth  of  the  paper  on  which 
they  were  printed.  If  he  had  failings,  which  of  us  is  free  from 
them  ?  and  how  many  of  us  can  reckon  among  ours  one  so 
kindly  as  this,  though,  perhaps,  publishers  may  think  so  culpa 
ble  ?  —  W.  ] 


CLASSIFICATION.  61 


(Ulassiftcatton. 

ERHAPS  it  would  be  a  good  practical 
distribution  of  the  class  of  persons  un 
der  examination,  to  divide  them  into 
private  prowlers  and  auction-hunters. 
There  are  many  other  modes  of  classifying  them, 
but  none  so  general.  They  might  be  classified  by 
the  different  sizes  of  books  they  affect  —  as  folios, 
quartos,  octavos,  and  duodecimos  —  but  this  would 
be  neither  an  expressive  nor  a  dignified  classifica 
tion.  In  enumerating  the  various  orders  to  which 
Fitzpatrick  Smart  did  not  belong,  I  have  mentioned 
many  of  the  species,  but  a  great  many  more  might 
be  added.  Some  collectors  lay  themselves  out  for 
vellum-printed  volumes  almost  solely.  There  are 
such  not  only  among  very  old  books,  but  among  very 
new  ;  for  of  a  certain  class  of  modern  books  it  fre 
quently  happens  that  a  copy  or  two  may  be  printed 
on  vellum,  to  catch  the  class  whose  weakness  takes 
that  direction. 

It  may  be  cited  as  a  signal  instance  of  the  freaks 
of  book-collecting,  that  of  all  men  in  the  world 
Junot,  the  hard-fighting  soldier,  had  a  vellum  li 
brary  ;  but  so  it  was.  It  was  sold  in  London  for 
about  .£1400.  "  The  crown  octavos,"  says  Dibdin, 
"  especially  of  ancient  classics,  and  a  few  favorite 
English  authors,  brought  from  four  to  six  guineas. 
The  first  virtually  solid  article  of  any  importance, 


G2  SIS  NATURE. 

or  rather  of  the  greatest  importance,  in  the  whole 
collection,  was  the  matchless  Didot  Horace,  of  1799, 
folio,  containing  the  original  drawings  from  which 
the  exquisite  copperplate  vignettes  were  executed. 
This  was  purchased  by  the  gallant  Mr.  George  Hib- 
bert  for  £140.  Nor  was  it  in  any  respect  an  ex 
travagant  or  even  dear  purchase."  It  now  worthily 
adorns  the  library  of  Norton  Hall. 

Some  collectors  may  be  styled  Rubricists,  being 
influenced  by  a  sacred  rage  for  books  having  the 
contents  and  marginal  references  printed  in  red  ink. 
Some  "  go  at  "  flowered  capitals,  others  at  broad 
margins.  These  have  all  a  certain  amount  of  mag 
nificence  in  their  tastes  ;  but  there  are  others  again 
whose  priceless  collections  are  like  the  stock-in- 
trade  of  a  wholesale  ballad-singer,  consisting  of 
chap-books,  as  they  are  termed  —  the  articles  dealt 
in  by  pedlers  and  semi-mendicants  for  the  past  cen- 

turv  or  two.     Some  affect  collections  relating  to  the 
j 

drama,  and  lay  great  store  by  heaps  of  play-bills 
arranged  in  volumes,  and  bound,  perhaps,  in  costly 
russia.  Of  a  more  dignified  grade  are  perhaps 
those  who  have  lent  themselves  to  the  collection  of 
the  theses  on  which  aspirants  after  university  hon 
ors  held  their  disputations  or  impugnments.  Some* 
times  out  of  a  great  mass  of  rubbish  of  this  kind 
the  youthful  production  of  some  man  who  has  after 
wards  become  great  turns  up.  Of  these  theses  and 
similar  tracts  a  German,  Count  Dietrich,  collected 
some  hundred  and  forty  thousand,  which  are  now 
in  this  country. 


CLASSIFICATION.  63 

Collectors  there  have  been,  not  unimportant  for 
number  and  zeal,  whoee  mission  it  is  to  purchase 
books  marked  by  peculiar  mistakes  or  errors  of  the 
press.  The  celebrated  Elzevir  Ccesar  of  1635  is 
known  by  this,  that  the  number  of  the  149th  page 
is  misprinted  153.  All  that  want  this  peculiar  dis 
tinction  are  counterfeits.  The  little  volume  being, 
as  Brunet  says,  "  une  des  plus  jolies  et  plus  rares 
de  la  collection  des  Elzevier,"  gave  a  temptation  to 
fraudulent  imitators,  who,  as  if  by  a  providential 
arrangement  for  their  detection,  lapsed  into  ac 
curacy  at  the  critical  figure.1 

1  [There  are  not  a  few  happy  mistakes  of  this  kind  which 
serve  for  the  protection  of  the  book  collector,  who  will  find 
almost  all  of  them  carefully  recorded  in  Brunet's  Manud  da  Li- 
braire,  without  consulting  which  no  inexperienced  buyer  should 
ever  make  an  important  purchase.  It  is,  however,  much  less 
full  in  this  respect,  as  well  as  in  others,  with  regard  to  books 
printed  in  our  own  language  than  with  regard  to  those,  both 
ancient  and  modern,  in  the  languages  of  the  continent  of  Europe. 
It  is  to  be  regretted  that  Lowndes's  Bibliographer's  Manual  is 
very  deficient  upon  this  point,  a  consideration  of  which  did  not  en 
ter  into  the  plans  of  either  Watts  or  Brydges.  Apropos,  the  lovers 
of  beautiful  books  more  suited  to  the  general  taste  than  Elzevir 
classics,  will  be  glad  to  know  of  an  error  which  affords  assistance 
in  the  selection  of  a  copy  of  that  much  prized,  and  most  beauti 
ful  volume,  Rogers'  Italy  with  Turner's,  Prout's,  and  Stothard's 
illustrations.  The  proof  copies  of  this  book  maintain  their 
high  price,  and  will  probably  increase  rather  than  diminish  in 
value.  They  can  never  be  mistaken,  because  in  the  corner  of 
each  impression,  after  the  engraver's  signature,  is  the  word 
"  proof."  But  there  are  a  few  copies,  not  thus  marked,  which 
rank  next  to  them,  and  which  are,  to  all  intents  and  purposes, 
as  good  as  proofs,  they  being  the  first  which  were  struck  off 
after  the  proof-mark  was  erased.  These  are  known  by  the 
misplacing  of  the  two  illustrations  to  the  lines  upon  Arqua. 


64  HIS  NATURE. 

The  mere  printers'  blunders  that  have  been  com 
mitted  upon  editions  of  the  Bible  are  reverenced  in 
literary  history  ;  and  one  edition  —  the  Vulgate  is 
sued  under  the  authority  of  Sixtus  V.  —  achieved 
immense  value  from  its  multitude  of  errors.  The 
well-known  story  of  the  German  printer's  wife  who 
surreptitiously  altered  the  passage  importing  that 
her  husband  should  be  her  lord  (Herr)  so  as  to 
make  him  be  her  fool  (Narr),  needs  confirmation. 
If  such  a  misprint  were  found,  it  might  quite  nat 
urally  be  attributed  to  carelessness.  Valarian  Fla- 
vigny,  who  had  many  controversies  on  his  hand, 
brought  on  the  most  terrible  of  them  all  with 
Abraham  Ecchellensis  for  a  mere  dropped  letter. 
In  the  rebuke  about  the  mote  in  thy  brother's  eye, 

The  view  of  the  tomb  should  be  at  the  beginning,  and  that  of 
Petrarch's  house  at  the  end  of  the  lines  ;  but  in  these  copies  the 
positions  are  reversed.  After  a  few  copies  were  printed  the 
error  was  discovered  and  corrected  ;  and  the  consequence  is 
that  the  copies  in  which  the  tomb  appears  on  page  88,  and  the 
house  on  page  91,  have  a  special  value,  hitherto  not  generally 
known. 

The  obscurity  of  a  learned  language  veils  the  most  formid 
able  error  of  the  press  that  probably  ever  occurred,  except  one 
in  the  London  "  Morning  Chronicle  "  on  the  morning  after  the 
birth  of  the  Princess  of  Wales  at  Buckingham  Palace,  the  ver 
nacular  enormity  of  which  makes  it  absolutely  unmentionable. 
The  former  fell  to  the  lot  of  Erasmus  in  his  book  Vidua  Chris 
tiana,  which  he  dedicated  to  Charles  the  Fifth's  sister,  the  Queen 
of  Hungary.  In  this  volume,  and  of  that  illustrious  princess 
herself,  he  wrote  Mente  ilia  usam  earn  semper  fuisse  qua?  talon  fem- 
inam  deceret;  but  the  printer,  as  if  seized  upon  by  the  spirit  of 
Aretino,  made  him  say,  Mentula  usam  earn,  &c.,  which  stupen 
dous  announcement  went  through  the  whole  of  a  large  edi 
tion.  —  VV.J 


CLASSIFICATION.  65 

and  the  beam  in  thine  own,  the  first  letter  in  the 
Latin  for  eye  was  carelessly  dropped  out,  and  left 
a  word  which  may  be  found  occasionally  in  Mar 
tial's  Epigrams,  but  not  in  books  of  purer  Latin  and 
purer  ideas.1 

Questions  as  to  typographical  blunders  in  editions 
of  the  classics  are  mixed  up  with  larger  critical  in 
quiries  into  the  purity  of  the  ascertained  text,  and 

1  A  traditional  anecdote  represents  the  Kev.  William  Thom 
son,  a  clergyman  of  the  Church  of  Scotland,  as  having  got 
into  a  scrape  by  a  very  indecorous  alteration  of  a  word  in 
Scripture.  A  young  divine,  on  his  first  public  appearance,  had 
to  read  the  solemn  passage  in  1st  Corinthians,  "  Behold,  I  show 
you  a  mystery  ;  we  shall  not  all  sleep,  but  we  shall  all  be 
changed,  in  a  moment,  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  at  the  last 
trump."  Thomson  scratched  the  letter  c  out  of  the  word  changed. 
The  effect  of  the  passage  so  mutilated  can  easily  be  tested.  The 
person  who  could  play  such  tricks  was  ill  suited  for  his  pro 
fession  ;  and,  being  relieved  of  its  restraints,  he  found  a  more 
congenial  sphere  of  life  among  the  unsettled  crew  of  men  of 
letters  in  London,  over  whom  Smollett  had  just  ceased  to 
reign.  He  did  a  deal  of  hard  work,  and  the  world  owes  him 
at  least  one  good  turn  in  his  translation  of  Cunningham's  Latin 
History  of  Britain,  from  the  Revolution  to  the  Hanover  Succession. 
The  value  of  this  work,  in  the  minute  light  thrown  by  it  on 
one  of  the  most  memorable  periods  of  British  history,  is  too 
little  known.  The  following  extract  may  give  some  notion  of 
the  curious  and  instructive  nature  of  this  neglected  book.  It 
describes  the  influences  which  were  in  favor  of  the  French  alli 
ance,  and  against  the  Whigs,  during  Maryborough's  campaign. 
"  And  now  I  shall  take  this  opportunity  to  speak  of  the  French 
wine-drinkers  as  truly  and  briefly  as  I  can.  On  the  first  break 
ing  out  of  the  Confederate  war,  the  merchants  in  England  were 
prohibited  from  all  commerce  with  France,  and  a  heavy  duty 
was  laid  upon  French  wine.  This  caused  a  grievous  complaint 
among  the  topers,  who  have  great  interest  in  the  Parliament,  as 
if  they  had  been  poisoned  by  port  wines.  Mr.  Portman  Sey- 
5 


66  WS  NATURE. 

thus  run  in  veins  through  the  mighty  strata  of 
philological  and  critical  controversy  which,  from  the 
days  of  Poggio  downwards,  have  continued  to  form 
that  voluminous  mass  of  learning  which  the  outer 
world  contemplates  with  silent  awe. 

To  some  extent  the  same  spirit  of  critical  inquiry 
has  penetrated  into  our  own  language.  What  we 
have  of  it  clusters  almost  exclusively  around  the 
mighty  name  of  Shakspeare.  Shakspearian  criti 
cism  is  a  branch  of  knowledge  by  itself.  To  record 
its  triumphs  —  from  that  greatest  one  by  which  the 
senseless  "  Table  of  Greenfield,"  which  interrupted 
the  touching  close  of  Falstaff 's  days,  was  replaced 

mour,  who  was  a  jovial  companion,  and  indulged  his  appetites, 
but  otherwise  a  good  man ;  General  Churchill,  the  Duke  of 
Marlborough's  brother,  a  man  of  courage,  but  a  lover  of  wine ; 
Mr.  Pereira,  a  Jew  and  smell-feast,  and  other  hard  drinkers, 
declared,  that  the  want  of  French  wine  was  not  to  be  endured, 
and  that  they  could  hardly  bear  up  under  so  great  a  calamity. 
These  were  joined  by  Dr.  Aldridge,  who,  though  nicknamed 
the  priest  of  Bacchus,  was  otherwise  an  excellent  man,  and 
adorned  with  all  kinds  of  learning.  Dr.  Kateliffe,  a  physician  of 
great  reputation,  who  ascribed  the  cause  of  all  diseases  to  the 
want  of  French  wines,  though  he  was  very  rich,  and  much 
addicted  to  wine,  yet,  being  extremely  covetous,  bought  the 
cheaper  wines  ;  but  at  the  same  time  he  imputed  the  badness 
of  his  wine  to  the  war,  and  the  difficulty  of  getting  better. 
Therefore  the  Duke  of  Beaufort  and  the  Earl  of  Scarsdale, 
two  young  noblemen  of  great  interest  among  their  acquaintance, 
who  had  it  in  their  power  to  live  at  their  ease  in  magnificence 
or  luxury,  merrily  attributed  all  the  doctor's  complaints  to  his 
avarice.  All  those  were  also  for  peace  rather  than  war.  And 
all  the  bottle  companions,  many  physicians,  and  great  numbers 
of  the  lawyers  and  inferior  clergy,  and,  in  fine,  the  loose  women 
too,  were  united  together  in  the  faction  against  the  Duke  of 
Marlborough."  —  ii.  200. 


CLASSIFICATION.  57 

by  "  'a  babbled  of  green  fields  "  —  would  make  a 
large  book  of  itself.  He  who  would  undertake  it, 
in  a  perfectly  candid  and  impartial  spirit,  would 
give  us,  varied  no  doubt  with  much  erudition  and 
acuteness,  a  curious  record  of  blundering  ignorance 
and  presumptuous  conceit,  the  one  so  intermingling 
with  the  other  that  it  would  be  often  difficult  to  dis 
tinguish  them.1 

The  quantity  of  typographical  errors  exposed  in 
those  pages  where  they  are  least  to  be  expected, 
and  are  least  excusable,  opens  up  some  curious  con 
siderations.  Compositors  are  a  placid  and  unim 
pressionable  race,  who  do  their  work  dutifully,  with- 

1  Without  venturing  too  near  to  this  very  turbulent  arena, 
where  hard  words  have  lately  been  cast  about  with  much  reckless 
ferocity,  I  shall  just  offer  one  amended  reading,  because  there 
is  something  in  it  quite  peculiar,  and  characteristic  of  its  liter 
ary  birthplace  beyond  the  Atlantic.  The  passage  operated  upon 
is  the  wild  soliloquy,  where  Hamlet  resolves  to  try  the  test  of 
the  play,  and  says,  — 

"  The  devil  hath  power 

T'  assume  a  pleasing  shape;  yea,  and  perhaps, 
Out  of  my  weakness  and  my  melancholy, 
As  he  is  very  potent  with  such  spirits, 
Abuses  me  to  damn  me." 

The  amended  reading  stands  — 

"  As  he  is  very  potent  with  such  spirits, 
Abuses  me  too  —  damme."  * 

[*  I  may  be  very  dull,  or  very  ignorant  of  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  ;  but  I 
am  quite  unable  to  see  in  this  emendation,  (which  must  be  classed  rather  with 
the  "ingenious"  than  the  erudite,)  anything  peculiarly  characteristic  of  its 
literary  birth-place.  It  is  humorous  indeed,  and  humor  is  perhaps  more  of 
an  every-day  matter  here  than  in  the  mother-country ;  but  the  humor  is  of 
the  kind  peculiarly  English,  and  the  oath  which  is  made  its  vehicle  has  been 
the  distinctive  oath  of  our  race  since  Joan  d'Arc  called  us  "  English  God- 


68  HIS  NATURE. 

out  yielding  to  the  intellectual  influences  repre 
sented  by  it.  A  clause  of  an  Act  of  Parliament, 
with  all  its  whereases,  and  be  it  enacteds,  and  here 
by  repealeds,  creates  quite  as  much  emotion  in  them 
as  the  most  brilliant  burst  of  the  fashionable  poet 
of  the  day.  They  will  set  you  up  a  psalm  or  a 
blasphemous  ditty  with  the  same  equanimity,  not 
retaining  in  their  minds  any  clear  distinction  be 
tween  them.  Your  writing  must  be  something  very 
wonderful  indeed,  before  they  distinguish  it  from 
other  "  copy,"  except  by  the  goodness  or  badness  of 
the  hand.  A  State  paper  which  all  the  world  is 
mad  to  know  about,  is  quite  safe  in  a  printing-office ; 
and  they  will  set  up  what  is  here  set  down  of  them, 

damns  "  four  hundred  years  ago  ;  and  doubtless  William  the  Norman  found 
this  hearty  curse  with  many  other  hearty  and  better  things  among  the  English 
whom  his  race  conquered,  and  by  whom  it  was  swallowed  up.  In  respect  of 
our  swearing,  at  least,  we  vindicate  our  birthright;  except  at  the  South,  in 
deed,  where  new  and  elaborate  monstrosities  of  profanity  have  been  ingeniously 
struck  out. 

But  here  is  an  emendation  which  should  commend  itself  to  the  attention  of 
the  British  critics.  The  passage  is  in  "Anthony  and  Cleopatra,"  Act  III. 
Sc.  11. 

"  Ah,  dear !  if  I  be  so, 

From  my  cold  heart  let  heaven  engender  hail 

And  poison  it  in  the  source." 

The  critic  remarks,  "What  absurdity!  Who  ever  heard  of  poisoning  hail? 
Cleopatra  plainly  desires  that  her  heart's  blood  should  be  turned  into  that 
delicious  fluid  the  poisoning  of  which  would  indeed  be  a  public  calamity.  Its 
name  is  often  incorrectly  pronounced,  we  know,  especially  by  Yankees,  without 
the  aspirate,  and  the  error  was  therefore  easy.  Read,  without  a  doubt, 

"  '  Ah  dear  !  if  I  be  so, 
From  my  cold  heart  let  heaven  engender  ale 
And  poison  it  in  the  source.'  " 

I  am  not  prepared  to  assert  positively  that  this  emendation,  which  must  be 
pronounced  both  ingenious  and  elaborate,  had  its  literary  birth-place  beyond 
the  Atlantic ;  but  it  certainly  smacks  more  peculiarly  of  London  than  the 
former  does  of  New  York  or  Boston.  — W.] 


CLASSIFICATION.  69 

without  noting  that  it  refers  to  themselves.  It  is 
said  that  this  stoic  indifference  is  a  wonderful  provi 
sion  for  the  preservation  of  the  purity  of  literature ; 
and  that,  were  compositors  to  think  with  the  author 
under  "  the  stick,"  they  might  make  dire  havoc. 

Allowing  for  these  peculiarities,  it  may  surely  be 
believed  that,  between  the  compositors  who  put  the 
types  together  and  the  correctors  of  the  press,  the 
printing  of  the  Bible  has  generally  been  executed 
with  more  than  average  care.  Yet  the  editions  of 
the  sacred  book  have  been  the  great  mine  of  dis 
covered  printers'  blunders.  The  inference  from 
this,  however,  is  not  that  blunders  abound  less  in 
other  literature,  but  that  they  are  not  worth  find 
ing  there.  The  issuing  of  the  true  reading  of  the 
Scripture  is  of  such  momentous  consequence,  that  a 
mistake  is  sure  of  exposure,  like  those  minute  inci 
dents  of  evidence  which  come  forth  when  a  murder 
has  been  committed,  but  w^ould  never  have  left  their 
privacy  for  the  detection  of  a  petty  fraud. 

The  value  to  literature  of  a  pure  Shakspearian 
text,  has  inspired  the  zeal  of  the  detectives  who 
work  on  this  ground.  Some  casual  detections  have 
occurred  in  minor  literature,  —  as,  for  instance, 
when  Akenside's  description  of  the  Pantheon,  which 
had  been  printed  as  "  serenely  great,"  was  restored 
to  "  severely  great."  The  reason,  however,  why 
such  detections  are  not  common  in  common  books, 
is  the  rather  humiliating  one  that  they  are  not  worth 
making.  The  specific  weight  of  individual  words  is 
in  them  of  so  little  influence,  that  one  does  as  well 


70  HIS  NATURE. 

as  another.  Instances  could  indeed  be  pointed  out, 
where  an  incidental  blunder  has  much  improved  a 
sentence,  giving  it  the  point  which  its  author  failed 
to  achieve  —  as  a  scratch  or  an  accidental  splash  of 
the  brush  sometimes  supplies  the  painter  with  the 
ray  or  the  cloud  which  the  cunning  of  his  hand 
cannot  accomplish.  Poetry  in  this  way  sometimes 
endures  the  most  alarming  oscillations  without  be 
ing  in  any  way  damaged,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
sometimes  rather  improved.  I  might  refer  to  a 
signal  instance  of  this,  where,  by  some  mysterious 
accident  at  press,  the  lines  of  a  poem  written  in 
quatrains  got  their  order  inverted,  so  that  the  sec 
ond  and  fourth  of  each  quatrain  changed  places. 
This  transposition  was  pronounced  to  operate  a 
decided  improvement  on  the  spirit  and  originality 
of  the  piece,  —  an  opinion  in  which,  unfortunately, 
the  author  did  not  concur  ;  nor  could  he  appreciate 
the  compliment  of  a  critic,  who  remarked  that  the 
experiment  tested  the  soundness  of  the  lines,  which 
could  find  their  feet  whatever  way  they  were  thrown 
about.1 

There  have  been,  no  doubt,  cruel  instances  of 
printers'  blunders  in  our  own  days,  like  the  fate  of 
the  youthful  poetess  in  the  Fudge  family  :  — 

1  One  curious  service  of  printer's  blunders,  of  a  character 
quite  distinct  from  their  bibliological  influence,  is  their  use  in 
detecting  plagiarisms.  It  may  seem  strange  that  there  should 
be  any  difficulty  in  critically  determining  the  question,  when 
the  plagiarism  is  so  close  as  to  admit  of  this  test ;  but  there  are 
pieces  of  very  hard  work  in  science,  tables  of  reference,  and  the 
like,  where,  if  two  people  go  through  the  same  work,  they  will 


CLASSIFICATION.  71 

'  When  I  talked  of  the  dewdrops  on  freshly-blown  roses, 
The  nasty  things  printed  it —  freshly-blown  noses." 

A  solid  scholar  there  was,  who,  had  he  been  called 
to  his  account  at  a  certain  advanced  period  of  his 
career,  might  have  challenged  all  the  world  to  say 
that  he  had  ever  used  a  false  quantity  or  committed 
an  anomaly  in  syntax,  or  misspelt  a  foreign  name, 
or  blundered  in  a  quotation  from  a  Greek  or  Latin 
classic  —  to  misquote  an  English  author  is  a  far 
lighter  crime,  but  even  to  this  he  could  have 
pleaded  not  guilty.  He  never  made  a  mistake  in 
a  date,  nor  left  out  a  word  in  copying  the  title-page 
of  a  volume  ;  nor  did  he  ever,  in  affording  an  intel 
ligent  analysis  of  its  contents,  mistake  the  number 
of  pages  devoted  to  one  head.  As  to  the  higher 
literary  virtues  too,  his  sentences  were  all  carefully 
balanced  in  a  pair  of  logical  and  rhetorical  scales 
of  the  most  sensitive  kind  ;  and  he  never  perpe 
trated  the  atrocity  of  ending  a  sentence  with  a 
monosyllable,  or  using  the  same  word  twice  within 
the  same  five  lines,  choosing  always  some  judicious 
method  of  circumlocution  to  obviate  reiteration. 
Poor  man  !  in  the  pride  of  his  unspotted  purity, 
he  little  knew  what  a  humiliation  fate  had  prepared 
for  him.  It  happened  to  him  to  have  to  state  how 

come  to  the  same  conclusion.  In  such  cases,  the  prior  worker 
has  sometimes  identified  his  own  by  a  blunder,  as  he  would  a 
stolen  china  vase  by  a  crack.  Peignot  complains  that  some 
thirty  or  forty  pages  of  his  Dictionnaire  BibliograpJiique  were  in 
corporated  in  the  Siecles  Litteraires  de  la  France,  "  avec  une  exac 
titude  si  admirable,  qu'on  y  a  precieusement  conserve  toutes  les 
fautes  typographiques." 


72  BIS  NATURE. 

Theodore  Beza,  or  some  contemporary  of  his,  went 
to  sea  in  a  Candian  vessel.  This  statement,  at 
the  last  moment,  when  the  sheet  was  going  through 
the  press,  caught  the  eye  of  an  intelligent  and 
judicious  corrector,  more  conversant  with  shipping- 
lists  than  with  the  literature  of  the  sixteenth  cen 
tury,  who  saw  clearly  what  had  been  meant,  and 
took  upon  himself,  like  a  man  who  hated  all  pot 
tering  nonsense,  to  make  the  necessary  correction 
without  consulting  the  author.  The  consequence 
was,  that  people  read  with  some  surprise,  under 
the  authority  of  the  paragon  of  accuracy,  that 
Theodore  Beza  had  gone  to  sea  in  a  Canadian 
vessel.  The  victim  of  this  calamity  had  undergone 
minor  literary  trials,  which  he  had  borne  with  phil 
osophical  equanimity ;  as,  for  instance,  when  incon 
siderate  people,  destitute  of  the  organ  of  venera 
tion,  thoughtlessly  asked  him  about  the  last  new 
popular  work,  as  if  it  were  something  that  he  had 
read  or  even  heard  of,  and  actually  went  so  far  in 
their  contumelious  disrespect  as  to  speak  to  him 
about  the  productions  of  a  certain  Charles  Dickens. 
The  "  Canadian  vessel,"  however,  was  a  more  seri 
ous  disaster,  and  was  treated  accordingly.  A  char 
itable  friend  broke  his  calamity  to  the  author  at  a 
judicious  moment,  to  prevent  him  from  discovering 
it  himself  at  an  unsuitable  time,  with  results  the 
full  extent  of  which  no  one  could  foresee.  It  was 
an  affair  of  much  anxiety  among  his  friends,  who 
made  frequent  inquiries  as  to  how  he  bore  himself 
in  his  affliction,  and  what  continued  to  be  the  con- 


CLASSIFICATION.  73 

dition  of  his  health,  and  especially  of  his  spirits. 
And  although  he  was  a  confirmed  book-hunter,  and 
not  unconscious  of  the  merits  of  the  peculiar  class 
of  books  now  under  consideration,  it  may  be  feared 
that  it  was  no  consolation  to  him  to  reflect  that, 
some  century  or  so  hence,  his  books  and  himself 
would  be  known  only  by  the  curious  blunder  which 
made  one  of  them  worth  the  notice  of  the  book- 
fanciers. 

An  odd  accident  occurred  to  a  well-known  book 
lately  published,  called  The  Men  of  the  Time.  It 
sometimes  happens  in  a  printing-office  that  some  of 
the  types,  perhaps  a  printed  line  or  two,  fall  out  of 
u  the  forme."  Those  in  whose  hands  the  accident 
occurs,  generally  try  to  put  things  to  rights  as  well 
as  they  can,  and  may  be  very  successful  in  restor 
ing  appearances  with  the  most  deplorable  results  to 
the  sense.  It  happened  thus  in  the  instance  re 
ferred  to.  A  few  lines  dropping  out  of  the  Life  of 
Robert  Owen,  the  parallelogram  Communist,  were 
hustled,  as  the  nearest  place  of  refuge,  into  the 
biography  of  his  closest  alphabetical  neighbor  — 
"  Oxford,  Bishop  of."  The  consequence  is,  that 
the  article  begins  as  follows :  — 

"  OXFORD,  THE  RIGHT  REVEREND  SAMUEL  WIL- 
BERFORCE,  BISHOP  OF,  was  born  in  1805.  A  more 
kind-hearted  and  truly  benevolent  man  does  not 
exist.  A  sceptic,  as  regards  religious  revelation, 
he  is  nevertheless  an  out-and-out  believer  in  spirit 
movements." 

Whenever  this  blunder  was  discovered,  the  leaf 


74  HIS  NATURE. 

was  cancelled ;  but  a  few  copies  of  the  book  had 
got  into  circulation,  which  some  day  or  other  may 
be  very  valuable.1 

In  the  several  phases  of  the  book-hunter,  he 
whose  peculiar  glory  it  is  to  have  his  books  illus 
trated  —  the  Grangerite,  as  he  is  technically  termed 
—  must  not  be  omitted.  "  Illustrating  "  a  volume 
consists  in  inserting  in  or  binding  up  with  it  por 
traits,  landscapes,  and  other  works  of  art  bearing  a 
reference  to  its  contents.  This  is  materially  differ 
ent  from  the  other  forms  of  the  pursuit,  in  as  far 
as  the  quarry  hunted  down  is  the  raw  material,  the 
finished  article  being  a  result  of  domestic  manufac 
ture.  The  illustrator  is  the  very  Ishmaelite  of  col 
lectors  —  his  hand  is  against  every  man,  and  every 
man's  hand  is  against  him.  He  destroys  unknown 
quantities  of  books  to  supply  portraits  or  other 
illustrations  to  a  single  volume  of  his  own  ;  and  as 
it  is  not  always  known  concerning  any  book  that 

1  [Hardly.  The  book,  even  in  its  last  corrected  and  aug 
mented  form,  is  too  full  of  blunders  to  be  specially  prized  for 
any  particular  one.  With  regard  to  this  country  its  mistakes 
are  equally  monstrous,  manifold,  and  laughable.  The  variation 
of  even  twenty  years  from  the  truth  in  the  date,  or  from  one 
hundred  to  five  hundred  miles  in  the  place,  of  a  man's  birth  is 
not  very  uncommon.  And  what  shall  be  said  of  the  absurdity, 
for  instance,  of  such  a  remark  as  that  with  regard  to  Mr.  Bryant 
that  "  probably  we  owe  '  Thanatopsis '  "  —  that  solemn  philoso 
phic  poem  upon  death  —  "  to  the  inspirations  of  his  early  love." 
I  will  notice  here  a  strange  mistake  made  by  Lowndes  in  his 
Bibliographers'  Manual  which  remains  in  the  new  edition,  to 
which  Mr.  Bohn  has  made  so  many  valuable  additions.  "  The 
Federalist"  is  said  to  be  "a  collection  of  essays  in  which  John 
Williams  alias  Anthony  Pasquins  was  concerned."  Shades  of 


CLASSIFICATION.  75 

he  has  been  at  work  on  it,  many  a  common  book- 
buyer  has  cursed  him  on  inspecting  his  own  last 
bargain,  and  finding  that  it  is  deficient  in  an  inter 
esting  portrait  or  two.  Tales  there  are,  fitted  to 
make  the  blood  run  cold  in  the  veins  of  the  most 
sanguine  book-hunter,  about  the  devastations  com 
mitted  by  those  who  are  given  over  to  this  special 
pursuit.  It  is  generally  understood  that  they  re 
ceived  the  impulse  which  has  rendered  them  an 
important  sect,  from  the  publication  of  Granger's 
biographical  history  —  hence  their  name  of  Gran- 
gerites.  So  it  has  happened  that  this  industrious 
and  respectable  compiler  is  contemplated  with  mys 
terious  awe,  as  a  sort  of  literary  Attila  or  Gengis 
Khan,  who  has  spread  terror  and  ruin  around  him. 
In  truth,  the  illustrator,  whether  green-eyed  or  not, 
beino;  a  monster  that  doth  make  the  meat  he  feeds 

O 

on,  is  apt  to  become  excited  with  his  work,  and  to 
go  on  ever  widening  the  circle  of  his  purveyances, 

Hamilton  and  Monroe,  founders  of  the  Great  Republic,  and 
revered  expositors  of  its  Constitution,  your  noble  work,  which 
stands  almost  alone,  as  being  at  once  an  undisputed  authority 
in  politics  and  a  classic  in  letters,  is  a  series  of  essays  in  which 
a  pasquinading  alias  "  was  concerned  ;  "  and  this  is  all !  Not  to 
know  who  wrote  "  The  Federalist,"  and  what  it  is,  and  that  the 
men  who  wrote  it,  although  of  what  a  member  of  Parliament, 
unrebuked  in  presence  of  the  British  Premier,  calls  "  the  scum 
of  the  earth,"  were  yet  of  a  sort  which  does  not  admit  the  com 
panionship  of  the  Anthony  Pasquins  of  London,  is  not  culpable 
in  a  British  subject ;  the  matter  may  be  of  no  interest  to  him  ; 
but  when,  pretending  to  speak  with  authority,  he  exhibits  such 
density  of  ignorance,  both  his  ignorance  and  his  pretence  be 
come  ridiculous.  —  W.I 


76  HIS   NATURE. 

and  opening  new  avenues  toward  the  raw  material 
on  which  he  works.  To  show  how  widely  such  a 
person  may  levy  contributions,  I  propose  to  take, 
not  a  whole  volume,  not  even  a  whole  page,  but 
still  a  specific  and  distinguished  piece  of  English 
literature,  and  describe  the  way  in  which  a  devotee 
of  this  peculiar  practice  would  naturally  proceed  in 
illustrating  it.  The  piece  of  literature  to  be  illus 
trated  is  as  follows  :  — 

"  How  doth  the  little  busy  bee 

Improve  each  shining  hour, 
And  gather  honey  all  the  day 
From  every  opening  flower.'* 

The  first  thing  to  be  done  is  to  collect  every  en 
graved  portrait  of  the  author,  Isaac  Watts.  The 
next,  to  get  hold  of  any  engravings  of  the  house  in 
which  he  was  born,  or  houses  in  which  he  lived. 
Then  will  come  all  kinds  of  views  of  Southampton 
—  of  its  Gothic  gate,  and  its  older  than  Gothic 
wall.  Any  scrap  connected  with  the  inauguration 
of  the  Watts  statue  must  of  course  be  scrupulously 
gathered.  To  go  but  a  step  beyond  such  common 
places  —  there  is  a  traditional  story  about  the  boy 
hood  of  Isaac  which  has  been  told  as  follows.  He 
took  precociously  to  rhyming  :  like  Pope,  he  lisped 
in  numbers,  for  the  numbers  came.  It  happened 
that  this  practice  was  very  offensive  to  his  father, 
a  practical  man,  who,  finding  admonition  useless, 
resolved  to  stop  it  in  an  effectual  manner.  He 
accordingly,  after  the  practice  of  his  profession  — 


CLASSIFICATION.  77 

being  a  schoolmaster  —  assailed  with  a  leathern 
thong,  duly  prepared,  the  cuticle  of  that  portion 
of  the  body  which  has  from  time  immemorial  been 
devoted  to  such  inflictions.  Under  torture,  the 
divine  songster  abjured  his  propensity  in  the  fol 
lowing  very  hopeful  shape  — 

"  Oh,  father,  do  some  pity  take, 
And  I  will  no  more  verses  make." 

It  is  not  likely  that  this  simple  domestic  scene 
has  been  engraved  either  for  the  Divine  Hymns,  or 
the  Improvement  of  the  Mind.  The  illustrator  will 
therefore  require  to  get  a  picture  of  it  for  his  own 
special  use,  and  will  add  immensely  to  the  value  of 
his  treasure  while  he  gives  scope  to  the  genius  of  a 
Cruikshank  or  a  Doyle. 

We  are  yet,  it  will  be  observed,  only  on  the 
threshold.  We  have  next  to  illustrate  the  sub 
stance  of  the  poetry.  All  kinds  of  engravings  of 
bees,  Attic  and  other,  and  of  bee-hives,  will  be 
appropriate,  and  will  be  followed  by  portraits  of 
Huber  and  other  great  writers  on  bees,  and  views 
of  Mount  Hybla  and  other  honey  districts.  Some 
Scripture  prints  illustrative  of  the  history  of  Sam 
son,  who  had  to  do  with  honey  and  bees,  will  be 
appropriate,  as  well  as  any  illustrations  of  the  fable 
of  the  bear  and  the  bees,  or  of  the  Roman  story  of 
the  sic  vos  non  vobis.  A  still  more  appropriate  form 
of  illustration  may,  however,  be  drawn  upon  by 
remembering  that  a  periodical  called  The  Bee  was 
edited  by  Dr.  Anderson  ;  and  it  is  important  to 


78  HIS  NATURE. 

observe  that  the  name  was  adopted  in  the  very 
spirit  which  inspired  Watts.  In  both  instances  the 
most  respected  of  all  winged  insects  was  brought 
forward  as  the  type  of  industry.  Portraits,  then,  of 
Dr.  Anderson,  and  any  engravings  that  can  be  con 
nected  with  himself  and  his  pursuits,  will  have  their 
place  in  the  collection.  It  will  occur,  perhaps,  to 
the  intelligent  illustrator,  that  Dr.  Anderson  was 
the  grandfather  of  Sir  James  Outram,  and  he  will 
thus  have  the  satisfaction  of  opening  his  collection 
for  all  illustrations  of  the  career  of  that  distinguished 
officer.  Having  been  aptly  called  the  Bayard  of 
the  Indian  service,  the  collector  who  has  exhausted 
him  and  his  services,  will  be  justified  by  the  princi 
ples  of  the  craft  in  following  up  the  chase,  and  pick 
ing  up  any  wood-cuts  or  engravings  referring  to 
the  death  of  the  false  Bourbon,  or  any  other  scene  in 
the  career  of  the  Knight  without  Fear  or  Reproach. 
Here,  by  a  fortunate  and  interesting  coincidence, 
through  the  Bourbons  the  collector  gets  at  the 
swarms  of  bees  which  distinguish  the  insignia  of 
royalty  in  France.  When  the  illustrator  comes  to 
the  last  line,  which  invites  him  to  add  to  what  he 
has  already  collected  a  representation  of  "  every 
opening  flower,"  it  is  easy  to  see  that  he  has  in 
deed  a  rich  garden  of  delights  before  him. 

In  a  classification  of  book-hunters,  the  aspirants 
after  large-paper  copies  deserve  special  notice,  were 
it  only  for  the  purpose  of  guarding  against  a  com 
mon  fallacy  which  confounds  them  with  the  lovers 
of  tall  copies.  The  difference  is  fundamental :  large- 


CLASSIFICATION.  79 

paper  copies  being  created  by  system,  while  tall 
copies  are  merely  the  creatures  of  accident ;  and 
Dibdin  bestows  due  castigation  in  a  celebrated  in 
stance  in  which  a  mere  tall  copy  had,  whether  from 
ignorance  or  design,  been  spoken  of  as  a  large-paper 
copy.  This  high  development  of  the  desirable  book 
is  the  result  of  an  arrangement  to  print  so  many 
copies  of  a  volume  on  paper  of  larger  size  than 
that  of  the  bulk  of  the  impression.  The  tall  copy 
is  the  result  of  careful  cutting  by  the  binder,  or  of 
no  cutting  at  all.  In  this  primitive  shape  a  book 
has  separate  charms  for  a  distinct  class  of  collectors 
who  esteem  rough  edges,  and  are  willing,  for  the 
sake  of  this  excellence,  to  endure  the  martyrdom  of 
consulting  books  in  that  condition.1 

1  "But  devious  oft,  from  ev'ry  classic  muse, 
The  keen  collector  meaner  paths  will  choose  : 
And  first  the  margin's  breadth  his  soul  employs, 
Pure,  snowy,  broad,  the  type  of  nobler  joys. 
In  vain  might  Homer  roll  the  tide  of  song, 
Or  Horace  smile,  or  Tully  charm  the  throng ; 
If  crost  by  Pallas'  ire,  the  trenchant  blade, 
Or  too  oblique,  or  near  the  edge,  invade, 
The  Bibliomane  exclaims,  with  haggard  eye, 
'  No  Margin  ! '  —  turns  in  haste,  and  scorns  to  buy." 

FERRIER'S  Bibliomania,  v.  34-43 

[Few,  very  few  book  collectors,  I  would  fain  believe,  are  so 
wedded  to  a  whim  as  to  have  books  with  the  top  edges  rough. 
It  would  seem  that  only  such  bibliomaniacs  as  read  no  books, 
except  catalogues,  could  really  desire  them  in  such  a  condition. 
"  Uncut  "  is  understood  among  all  sane  bibliomaniacs  to  refer  to 
the  fore-edge  and  the  bottom  edge.  A  book  which  is  intended  to 
fulfil  any  function,  to  which  a  block  of  wood,  leathered  and  gilt 
and  lettered  in  like  manner  is  not  equally  fitted,  should  have  the 


80  HIS  NATURE. 

The  historian  of  the  private  libraries  of  New 
York  makes  us  acquainted  with  a  sect  well  known 
in  the  actually  sporting  world,  but  not  heretofore 
familiar  in  the  biblical.1  Here  is  a  description  of 

top  edge  cut  and  gilt  or  stained  ;  otherwise  not  only  will  the  con 
sulting,  or  even  the  showing,  of  it  be  a  penance  for  folly,  but  the 
rough  top  edges  will  retain  dust  which  will  sift  down  between 
the  leaves  and  thus  deface  the  book  inside  as  well  as  out.  This 
dust  can  be  blown  from  a  book,  the  top  edges  of  which  have 
been  polished,  as  if  from  glass.  The  top  edge  being  thus  cared 
for,  the  condition  of  the  fore-edge  and  the  bottom  edge  are  sub 
jects  of  legitimate  caprice ;  for  no  man  who  is  worthy  of  being 
the  possessor  of  a  good  book  will  ever  dream  of  turning  the 
leaves  in  any  other  way  than  with  the  thumb  on  the  page  and 
fore  finger  at  the  top.  All  other  modes  are  barbarous. 

It  is  worth  while  to  caution  the  collector  against  indiscrimi 
nate  large  paper  gathering.  There  is  always,  of  course,  a  certain 
distinction  about  a  large  paper  copy,  because  it  is  one  of  a  small 
number,  specially  prepared,  and  much  costlier  than  those  of  the 
ordinary  size.  To  certain  books  this  luxury  of  margins  is  very 
appropriate,  if  the  margin  is  well  proportioned  to  the  page  ; 
though  it  should  be  always  remembered  that  the  addition  to  the 
margin  adds  to  the  weight  of  the  book,  makes  it  less  convenient 
to  handle,  and  in  effect  diminishes  by  so  much  the  capacity  of 
the  library  shelves.  The  omnivorous  Mr.  Heber,  of  whom  the 
author  subsequently  speaks,  looked  upon  large  paper  with  ab 
horrence,  on  account  of  the  room  which  it  took  up.  Sometimes, 
too,  it  is  pushed  to  a  ridiculous  and  uncomely  extreme.  There 
are  many  books  which  have  been  printed  on  paper  of  three  sizes, 
—  ordinary,  large,  and  largest ;  and  of  these  the  largest  is  not 
always  the  most  beautiful.  Other  things  being  equal,  quality 
is  of  more  importance  than  size  of  paper ;  and  of  many  books 
there  are  special  copies  on  laid,  on  fine,  and  on  India  paper, 
which,  with  reason,  are  eagerly  sought  by  those  who,  like  the 
author  of  "  The  Wealth  of  Nations,"  are  dandies  in  their  libra 
ries.  —  W.] 

1  [The  author  errs  here,  whether  he  uses  the  word  "biblical" 
with  reference  to  books  in  general,  or  to  men  who  are  profes- 


CLASSIFICATION.  g]_ 

the  Waltonian  library  of  the  Reverend  Dr.  Bethune. 
In  the  sunshine  he  is  a  practical  angler,  and  — 

"  During  the  darker  seasons  of  the  year,  when 
forbidden  the  actual  use  of  his  rod,  our  friend  has 
occupied  himself  with  excursions  through  sale  cata 
logues,  fishing  out  from  their  dingy  pages  whatever 
tends  to  honor  his  favorite  author  or  favorite  art, 
so  that  his  spoils  now  number  nearly  five  hun 
dred  volumes,  of  all  sizes  and  dates.  Pains  have 
been  taken  to  have  not  only  copies  of  the  works  in 
cluded  in  the  list,  but  also  the  several  editions ;  and 
when  it  is  of  a  work  mentioned  by  Walton,  an  edi 
tion  which  the  good  old  man  himself  may  have  seen. 
Thus  the  collection  has  all  the  editions  of  Walton, 
Cotton,  and  Venables  in  existence,  and,  with  few 
exceptions,  all  the  works  referred  to  by  Walton,  or 
which  tend  to  illustrate  his  favorite  rambles  by  the 
Lea  or  the  Dove.  Every  scrap  of  Walton's  writ 
ing,  and  every  compliment  paid  to  him,  have  been 
carefully  gathered  and  garnered  up,  with  prints  and 
autographs  and  some  precious  manuscripts.  Nor 

sional  expounders  of  The  Book,  or  quibbles  between  the  two. 
The  Waltonians  have  been  a  long-recognized  sept  of  the  race 
of  book-hunters  ;  and  the  vigor  and  pertinacity  with  which  they 
pursue  their  game  put  Piscator,  Auceps,  and  Nimrod  himself 
to  shame,  as  any  one  must  know  who  has  entered  the  lists  with 
them.  As  to  Reverend  fishermen,  the  author  must  have  forgot 
ten  Dr.  Paley,  not  to  speak  of  Peter,  and  the  sons  of  the  father 
of  Zebedee's  children,  the  puzzle  as  to  whose  immediate  paternal 
ancestor  has  so  often  shown  that  it  is  not  only  a  wise  child  that 
knows  his  own  father.  Apostles  and  saints  though  these  were, 
they  could  hardly  have  had  purer  minds  or  kinder  hearts  than 
he  who  is  the  occasion  of  this  note.  —  W.] 
6 


82  HIS  NATURE. 

does  the  department  end  here,  but  embraces  most 
of  the  older  and  many  of  the  modern  writers  on 
ichthyology  and  angling." 


Sllje  Jprotulcr  anb  tlje  ^uction-fjauntcr. 

HESE  incidental  divisions  are  too  nu 
merous  and  complex  for  a  proper  clas 
sification  of  book-hunters,  and  I  am  in 
clined  to  go  back  to  the  idea  that  their 
most  effective  and  comprehensive  division  is  into 
the  private  prowler  and  the  auction-haunter.  The 
difference  between  these  is  something  like,  in  the 
sporting  world,  that  between  the  stalker  and  the 
hunter  proper.  Each  function  has  its  merits,  and 
calls  for  its  special  qualities  and  sacrifices.  The 
one  demands  placidity,  patience,  caution,  plausibil 
ity,  and  unwearied  industry  —  such  attributes  as 
those  which  have  been  already  set  forth  in  the  words 
of  the  Antiquary.  The  auction-room,  on  the  other 
hand,  calls  forth  courage,  promptness,  and  the  spirit 
of  adventure.  There  is  wild  work  sometimes  there, 
and  men  find  themselves  carried  off  by  enthusiasm 
and  competition  towards  pecuniary  sacrifices  which 
at  the  threshold  of  the  auction-room  they  had  sol 
emnly  vowed  to  themselves  to  eschew.  But  such 
sacrifices  are  the  tribute  paid  to  the  absorbing  inter 
est  of  the  pursuit,  and  are  looked  upon  in  their  own 
peculiar  circle  as  tending  to  the  immortal  honor  of 


THE  AUCTION-HAUNTER.  83 

those  who  make  them.  This  field  of  prowess  has, 
it  is  said,  undergone  a  prejudicial  change  in  these 
days,  the  biddings  being  nearly  all  by  dealers,  while 
gentlemen-collectors  are  gradually  moving  out  of 
the  field.  In  old  days  one  might  have  reaped  for 
himself,  by  bold  and  emphatic  biddings  at  a  few 
auctions,  a  niche  in  that  temple  of  fame,  of  which 
the  presiding  deity  is  Dr.  Frognall  Dibdin  —  a  name 
familiarly  abbreviated  into  that  of  Foggy  Dibdin. 
His  descriptions  of  auction-contests  are  perhaps  the 
best  and  most  readable  portions  of  his  tremendously 
overdone  books.1 

i  [Dibdin's  books  are  not  only  excessively  written,  but  they 
are  brimful  of  apparently  inbred,  and  hugely  developed  flunky- 
ism  and  snobbishness,  (unpleasant  words,  but  without  more 
acceptable  equivalents,)  and  their  language  is  defiled  with  cant 
not  less  offensive  than  that  of  the  ring,  the  turf,  or  the  conven 
ticle,  or  any  cant,  indeed,  for  all  of  it  is  loathsome.  Some  book- 
hunters,  when  they  get  together  to  "  talk  book,"  seem  to  think 
it  necessary  to  show  their  command  of  this  nauseous  vocabulary, 
which  even  before  it  became  cant  was  but  silly  babble.  Let  men 
who  really  love  books,  and  read  them,  eschew  it.  Dibdin's  books 
are  valuable  for  their  information  and  their  illustrations  ;  although 
in  the  former  respect  they  frequently  lead  astray.  I  have  seen  a 
letter  from  the  late  Thomas  Rodd,  bookseller,  of  London,  who  in 
bibliography  could  have  put  Dibdin  to  school,  in  which  he  speaks 
of  Sir  Walter  Scott  as  the  most  inaccurate  of  writers,  except 
Thomas  Frognall  Dibdin.  The  charge  is  exaggerated  in  both 
cases  ;  but  not  so  much  so  in  the  former  as  most  readers  are  ready 
to  believe.  Scott,  standing  head  and  shoulders  above  all  British 
writers  of  imaginative  literature,  (for  he  cannot  properly  be 
called  an  English  author,)  and  next  to  Shakespeare  among  those 
who  have  used  the  English  tongue,  has  yet  written  hardly  a 
page  in  which  there  cannot  be  detected  some  error  of  fact  or  of 
language,  generally  trivial,  of  course,  but  sometimes  impor 
tant.  —  W.J 


84  HIS  NATURE. 

Conspicuous  beyond  all  others  stands  forth  the 
sale  of  the  Roxburghe  library,  perhaps  the  most 
eminent  contest  of  that  kind  on  record.  There 
were  of  it  some  ten  thousand  separate  "  lots,"  as 
auctioneers  call  them,  and  almost  every  one  of  them 
was  a  book  of  rank  and  mark  in  the  eyes  of  the  col 
lecting  community,  and  had  been,  with  special  pains 
and  care  and  anxious  exertion,  drawn  into  the  vortex 
of  that  collection.  Although  it  was  created  by  a 
Duke,  yet  it  has  been  rumored  that  most  of  the 
books  were  bargains,  and  that  the  noble  collector 
drew  largely  on  the  spirit  of  patient  perseverance 
and  enlightened  sagacity  for  which  Monkbarns 
claims  credit.  The  great  passion  and  pursuit  of 
his  life  having  been  of  so  peculiar  a  character  —  he 
was  almost  as  zealous  a  hunter  of  deer  and  wild 
swans,  by  the  way,  as  of  books,  but  this  was  not 
considered  in  the  least  peculiar  —  it  was  necessary 
to  find  some  strange  influencing  motive  for  his  con 
duct  ;  so  it  has  been  said  that  it  arose  from  his  hav 
ing  been  crossed  in  love  in  his  early  youth.  Such 
crosses,  in  general,  arise  from  the  beloved  one  dy 
ing,  or  proving  faithless  and  becoming  the  wife  of 
another.  It  was,  however,  the  peculiarity  of  the 
Duke's  misfortune,  that  it  arose  out  of  the  illustri 
ous  marriage  of  the  sister  of  his  elected.  She  was 

o 

the  eldest  daughter  of  the  Duke  of  Mecklenburg- 
Strelitz.  Though  purchased  by  a  sacrifice  of  regal 
rank,  yet  there  would  be  many  countervailing  ad 
vantages  in  the  position  of  an  affluent  British  Duch 
ess,  which  might  reconcile  a  young  lady  even  of  so 


THE  AUCTION-HAUNTER.  35 

illustrious  a  descent,  to  the  sacrifice,  had  it  not  hap 
pened  that  Lord  Bute  and  the  Princess  of  Wales 
selected  her  younger  sister  to  be  the  wife  of  George 
III.  and  the  Queen  of  Great  Britain,  long  known 
as  the  good  Queen  Charlotte.  Then  there  arose,  it 
seems,  the  necessity,  as  a  matter  of  state  and  politi 
cal  etiquette,  that  the  elder  sister  should  abandon 
the  alliance  with  a  British  subject.1 

So,  at  all  events,  goes  the  story  of  the  origin  of 
the  Duke's  bibliomania  ;  and  it  is  supposed  to  have 
been  in  the  thoughts  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  when  he 
said  of  him  that  "  youthful  misfortunes,  of  a  kind 
against  which  neither  wealth  nor  rank  possess  a 
talisman,  cast  an  early  shade  of  gloom  over  his 
prospects,  and  gave  to  one  splendidly  endowed  with 
the  means  of  enjoying  society  that  degree  of  re 
served  melancholy  which  prefers  retirement  to  the 
splendid  scenes  of  gaiety."  Dibdin,  with  more 

1  [Could  there  be  a  more  telling  illustration  of  the  childish 
triviality  as  well  as  of  the  oppressive  tyranny  of  the  State  and 
political  etiquette  which  still  maintains  itself  in  the  monarchies  of 
Europe,  —  which  in  fact  spreads  and  strengthens,  as  monarchy  is 
passing  into  a  feeble  show,  a  dumb  and  grotesque  image  of  what 
was  once  a  living  power  !  Is  it  not  strange  that  an  intelligent 
and  independent  people  will  suffer  the  continued  existence  of 
such  a  patent  absurdity, —  one  which  costs  so  much,  beside. 
Kings,  if  you  please,  so  that  they  are  kings  ;  but  these  kings  of 
"  shreds  and  patches,"  which,  if  they  were  not  bolstered  up  and 
bombasted  out  with  State  and  political  etiquette,  would  fall  flat- 
long  into  the  rag-bag,  —  not  having  the  wherewith  to  go  head 
long, —  fit  only  to  be  thrust  into  the  rubbish-room  or  sold  to  curi 
osity  hunters  and  old  do'  dealers  !  The  German  lad  named 
Albert  Edward  who  was  here  a  year  or  two  ago  seemed  an  intel 
ligent,  well-mannered,  well-meaning  youth,  —  high  praise  for  one 


86  HIS  NATURE. 

specific  precision,  after  rambling  over  the  house 
where  the  great  auction-sale  occurred,  as  inquisitive 
people  are  apt  to  do,  tells  us  of  the  solitary  room 
occupied  by  the  Duke,  close  to  his  library,  in  which 
he  slept  and  died  :  u  all  his  migrations,"  says  the 
bibliographer,  "  were  confined  to  these  two  rooms. 
When  Mr.  Nichol  showed  me  the  very  bed  on 
which  this  bibliomaniacal  Duke  had  expired,  I  felt 
—  as  I  trust  I  ought  to  have  felt  on  the  occasion." 
Scott  attributed  to  an  incidental  occurrence  at  his 
father's  table  the  direction  given  to  the  great  pur 
suit  of  his  life.  "  Lord  Oxford  and  Lord  Sunder- 
land,  both  famous  collectors  of  the  time,  dined  one 
day  with  the  second  Duke  of  Roxburghe,  when 
their  conversation  happened  to  turn  upon  the  editio 
princeps  of  Boccaccio,  printed  in  Venice  in  1474, 
and  so  rare  that  its  very  existence  was  doubted  of." 
It  so  happened  that  the  Duke  remembered  this  vol- 

of  his  family,  on  the  mother's  side,  —  is  it  not,  Mr.  Thackeray  ? 
As  a  man,  lie  won  the  respect  of  all  with  whom  he  came  in  con 
tact;  nay,  he  awoke  a  tender  solicitude  for  one  to  whom  the  fu 
ture  might  bring  woes,  surely  would  bring  trials.  But  as  a 
prince,  his  three  ostrich-feathers  are  not  a  lighter  vanity ;  as  a 
king,  his  crown,  with  or  without  his  or  any  other  head  in  it,  it 
makes  no  matter,  will  not  be  an  emptier  show.  And  to  sacrifice 
to  these  tilings  the  heart's  happiness,  and  the  hard  wrung  sweat, 
the  very  life's  blood  of  great  peoples  !  A  Czar  is  something,  — 
nay,  even  an  Emperor  of  the  French,  while  he  lasts,  —  but  a  king 
over  English  men,  who  have  common  sense,  and  who  call  them 
selves  free,  and  are  so,  and  who  know  most  of  them,  and  who  all 
in  a  few  months  might  be  safely  taught,  what  a  costly  sham  such 
a  creature  is,  being  no  more  regal,  in  fact,  than  John  Doe  and 
Richard  Hoe,  —  such  a  fiction  should  have  long  since  passed 
away,  and  would  have  done  so  but  for  the  few  who  keep  it  up 
for  their  own  aggrandizement.  —  W.] 


THE  AUCTION-HAUNTER.  $7 

ume  having  been  offered  to  him  for  <£100,  and  he 
believed  he  could  still  trace  and  secure  it :  he  did 
so,  and  laid  it  before  his  admiring  friends  at  a  sub 
sequent  sitting.  "  His  son,  then  Marquess  of  Beau 
mont,  never  forgot  the  little  scene  upon  this  occa 
sion,  and  used  to  ascribe  to  it  the  strong  passion 
which  he  ever  afterwards  felt  for  rare  books  and 
editions,  and  which  rendered  him  one  of  the  most 
assiduous  and  judicious  collectors  that  ever  formed 
a  sumptuous  library."  And  this  same  Boccaccio 
was  the  point  of  attack  which  formed  the  climax  in 
the  great  contest  of  the  Roxburghe  roup,  as  the 
Duke's  fellow-countrymen  called  it. 

The  historian  of  the  contest  terms  it  "  the  Wa 
terloo  among  book-battles,"  whereto  "  many  a 
knight  came  far  and  wide  from  his  retirement,  and 
many  an  unfledged  combatant  left  his  father's  castle 
to  partake  of  the  glory  of  such  a  contest."  He  also 
tells  us  that  the  honor  of  the  first  effective  shot  was 
due  to  a  house  in  the  trade  —  Messrs.  Payne  and 
Foss  —  by  whom  "the  Aldine  Greek  Bible  was 
killed  off  the  first  in  the  contest.  It  produced  the 
sum  of  <£4,  14s.  6d.  Thus  measuredly,  and  guard 
edly,  and  even  fearfully,  did  this  tremendous  battle 
begin."  The  earliest  brilliant  affair  seems  to  have 
come  off  when  Lord  Spencer  bought  two  Cax- 
tons  for  £245,  a  feat  of  which  the  closing  scene 
is  recorded,  with  a  touching  simplicity,  in  these 
terms : — "  His  Lordship  put  each  volume  under  his 

1  Article  on  Pitcairn's  Criminal  Trials  in  the  21st  vol.  of  Mis 
cellaneous  Prose  Works. 


88  HIS  NATURE. 

coat,  and  walked  home  with  them  in  all  the  flush  of 
victory  and  consciousness  of  triumph."  As  every 
one  does  not  possess  a  copy  of  the  three  costly  vol 
umes  of  which  the  Bibliographical  Decameron  con 
sists —  and,  further,  as  many  a  one  so  fortunate  as 
to  possess  them  has  not  had  patience  and  persever 
ance  enough  to  penetrate  to  the  middle  of  the  third 
volume,  where  the  most  readable  part  is  to  be  found 
—  a  characteristic  extract,  describing  the  heat  of 
the  contest,  may  not  be  unwelcome:  — 

"  For  two-and-forty  successive  days  —  with  the 
exception  only  of  Sundays  —  were  the  voice  and 
hammer  of  Mr.  Evans  heard  with  equal  efficacy  in 
the  dining-room  of  the  late  Duke,  which  had  been 
appropriated  to  the  rendition  of  the  books;  and 
within  that  same  space  (some  thirty-five  feet  by 
twenty)  were  such  deeds  of  valor  performed,  and 
such  feats  of  book-heroism  achieved,  as  had  never 
been  previously  beheld,  and  of  which  the  like  will 
probably  never  be  seen  again.  The  shouts  of  the 
victors  and  the  groans  of  the  vanquished  stunned 
and  appalled  you  as  you  entered.  The  striving 
and  press,  both  of  idle  spectators  and  determined 
bidders,  was  unprecedented.  A  sprinkling  of  Cax- 
tons  and  De  Wordes  marked  the  first  day,  and 
these  were  obtained  at  high,  but,  comparatively 
with  the  subsequent  sums  given,  moderate  prices. 
Theology,  jurisprudence,  philosophy,  and  philology 
chiefly  marked  the  earlier  days  of  this  tremendous 
contest;  and  occasionally  during  these  days  there 
was  much  stirring  up  of  courage,  and  many  hard 


THE  AUCTION-HAUNTER.  89 

and  heavy  blows  were  interchanged  ;  and  the  com 
batants  may  be  said  to  have  completely  wallowed 
themselves  in  the  conflict.  At  length  came  poetry, 
Latin,  Italian,  and  French  :  a  steady  fight  yet  con 
tinued  to  be  fought ;  victory  seemed  to  hang  in 
doubtful  scales  —  sometimes  on  the  one,  sometimes 
on  the  other  side  of  Mr.  Evans,  who  preserved 
throughout  (as  it  was  his  bounden  duty  to  preserve) 
a  uniform,  impartial,  and  steady  course ;  and  who 
may  be  said  on  that  occasion,  if  not '  to  have  rode  the 
whirlwind,'  at  least  to  have  '  directed  the  storm.' ': 

But  the  dignity  and  power  of  the  historian's  nar 
rative  cannot  be  fully  appreciated  until  we  find  him 
in  the  midst  of  the  climax  of  the  contest  —  the  bat 
tle,  which  gradually  merged  into  a  single  combat, 
for  the  possession  of  the  Venetian  Boccaccio.  Ac 
cording  to  the  established  historical  practice,  we 
have  in  the  first  place  a  statement  of  the  position 
taken  up  by  the  respective  "  forces. " 

"  At  length  the  moment  of  sale  arrived.  Evans 
prefaced  the  putting-up  of  the  article  by  an  appro 
priate  oration,  in  which  he  expatiated  on  its  ex 
treme  rarity,  and  concluding  by  informing  the 
company  of  the  regret,  and  even  anguish  of  heart, 
expressed  by  Mr.  Van  Praet  that  such  a  treasure 
was  not  to  be  found  in  the  Imperial  collection  at 
Paris.  Silence  followed  the  address  of  Mr.  Evans. 
On  his  right  hand,  leaning  against  the  wall,  stood 
Earl  Spencer ;  a  little  lower  down,  and  standing  at 
right  angles  with  his  Lordship,  appeared  the  Mar 
quess  of  Blandford.  Lord  Al thorp  stood  a  little 


90  HIS  NATURE. 

backward,  to  the  right  of  his  father,  Earl  Spen 
cer." 

The  first  movement  of  the  forces  gives  the  histo 
rian  an  opportunity  of  dropping  a  withering  sneer 
at  an  unfortunate  man,  so  provincial  in  his  notions 
as  to  suppose  that  a  hundred  pounds  or  two  would 
be  of  any  avail  in  such  a  contest. 

"  The  honor  of  firing  the  first  shot  was  due  to  a 
gentleman  of  Shropshire,  unused  to  this  species  of 
warfare,  and  who  seemed  to  recoil  from  the  rever 
beration  of  the  report  himself  had  made.  '  One 
hundred  guineas,'  he  exclaimed.  Again  a  pause 
ensued  ;  but  anon  the  biddings  rose  rapidly  to  five 
hundred  guineas.  Hitherto,  however,  it  was  evi 
dent  that  the  firing  was  but  masked  and  desultory. 
At  length  all  random  shots  ceased,  and  the  cham 
pions  before  named  stood  gallantly  up  to  each 
other,  resolving  not  to  flinch  from  a  trial  of  their 
respective  strengths.  A  thousand  guineas  were  bid 
by  Earl  Spencer  —  to  which  the  Marquess  added 
ten.  You  might  have  heard  a  pin  drop.  All  eyes 
were  turned  —  all  breathing  wellnigh  stopped  — 
every  sword  was  put  home  within  its  scabbard  — 
and  not  a  piece  of  steel  was  seen  to  move  or  to 
glitter  except  that  which  each  of  these  champions 
brandished  in  his  valorous  hand." 

But  even  this  exciting  sort  of  narrative  will  tire 
one  when  it  goes  on  page  after  page,  so  that  we 
must  take  a  leap  to  the  conclusion.  "  Two  thou 
sand  two  hundred  and  fifty  pounds,"  said  Lord 
Spencer.  "  The  spectators  were  now  absolutely 


THE  AUCTION-HAUNTER.  91 

electrified.  The  Marquess  quietly  adds  his  usual 
ten"  and  so  there  an  end.  "  Mr.  Evans,  ere  his 
hammer  fell,  made  a  short  pause  —  and  indeed,  as 
if  by  something  preternatural,  the  ebony  instrument 
itself  seemed  to  be  charmed  or  suspended  in  the 
mid  air.  However,  at  last  down  dropped  the  ham 
mer." 

Such  a  result  naturally  created  excitement  be 
yond  the  book-collectors'  circle,  for  here  was  an 
actual  stroke  of  trade  in  which  a  profit  of  more 
than  two  thousand  per  cent,  had  been  netted.  It 
is  easy  to  believe  in  Dibdin's  statement  of  the 
crowds  of  people  who  imagined  they  were  possess 
ors  of  the  identical  Venetian  Boccaccio,  and  the 
still  larger  number  who  wanted  to  do  a  stroke  of 
business  with  some  old  volume,  endowed  with  the 
same  rarity  and  the  same  or  greater  intrinsic  value. 
The  general  excitement  created  by  the  dispersal  of 
the  Roxburghe  collection  proved  an  epoch  in  liter 
ary  history,  by  the  establishment  of  the  Roxburghe 
Club,  followed  by  a  series  of  others,  the  history  of 
which  has  to  be  told  farther  on. 

Of  the  great  book-sales  that  have  been  com 
memorated,  it  is  curious  to  observe  how  seldom 
they  embrace  ancestral  libraries  accumulated  in  old 
houses  from  generation  to  generation,  and  how  gen 
erally  they  mark  the  shortlived  duration  of  the 
accumulations  of  some  collector  freshly  deposited. 
One  remarkable  exception  to  this  was  in  the  Gor- 
donstoun  library,  sold  in  1816.  It  was  begun  by 
Sir  Robert  Gordon,  a  Morayshire  laird  of  the  time 


92  HIS  NATURE. 

of  the  great  civil  wars  of  the  seventeenth  century. 
He  was  the  author  of  the  History  of  the  Earldom 
of  Sutherland,  and  a  man  of  great  political  as  well 
as  literary  account.  He  laid  by  heaps  of  the  pam 
phlets,  placards,  and  other  documents  of  his  stormy 
period  ;  and  thus  many  a  valuable  morsel,  which 
had  otherwise  disappeared  from  the  world,  left  a 
representative  in  the  Gordonstoun  collection.1  It 
was  increased  by  a  later  Sir  Robert,  who  had  the 
reputation  of  being  a  wizard.  He  belonged  to  one 
of  those  terrible  clubs  from  which  Satan  is  entitled 
to  take  a  victim  annually  ;  but  when  Gordon's  turn 
came,  he  managed  to  get  off  with  merely  the  loss 
of  his  shadow  ;  and  many  a  Morayshire  peasant 
has  testified  to  having  seen  him  riding  forth  on  a 
sunny  day,  the  shadow  of  his  horse  visible,  with 
those  of  his  spurs  and  his  whip,  but  his  body  offer 
ing  no  impediment  to  the  rays  of  the  sun.  He 
enriched  the  library  with  books  on  necromancy, 
demonology,  and  alchemy. 

The  greatest  book-sale  probably  that  ever  was 
in  the  world,  was  that  of  Heber's  collection  in 
1834.  There  are  often  rash  estimates  made  of  the 
size  of  libraries,  but  those  who  have  stated  the 
number  of  his  books  in  six  figures,  seem  justified 
when  one  looks  at  the  catalogue  of  the  sale,  bound 
up  in  five  thick  octavo  volumes.  For  results  so 

1  [It  is  perhaps  worthy  of  remark  that  this  library  was  barren 
of  Shakespeare's  works,  although  it  was  collected  by  a  gentle 
man  of  wealth  and  of  curious  as  well  as  literary  tastes,  at  a 
time  when  the  now  almost  priceless  quartos  might  have  been 
bought  for  a  shilling.  —  W.J 


THE  AUCTION-HAUNTER.  93 

magnificent,  Richard  Heber's  library  had  but  a 
small  beginning,  according  to  the  memoir  of  him 
in  the  Gentleman  s  Magazine,  where  it  is  said,  that 
"  having  one  day  accidentally  met  with  a  little 
volume,  called  The  Vallie  of  Varietie,  by  Henry 
Peacham,  he  took  it  to  the  late  Mr.  Bindley  of  the 
Stamp-office,  the  celebrated  collector,  and  asked 
him  if  this  was  not  a  curious  book.  Mr.  Bindley, 
after  looking  at  it,  answered,  4  Yes  —  not  very  — 
but  rather  a  curious  book.' '  This  faint  morsel  of 
encouragement  was,  it  seems,  sufficient  to  start  him 
in  his  terrible  career  ;  and  the  trifle  becomes  im 
portant  as  a  solemn  illustration  of  the  olsta  prin- 
cipiis.  His  labors,  and  even  his  perils,  were  on  a 
par  with  those  of  any  veteran  commander  who  has 
led  armies  and  fought  battles  during  the  great 
part  of  a  long  life.  He  would  set  off  on  a  journey 
of  several  hundred  miles  any  day  in  search  of  a 
book  not  in  his  collection.  Sucking  in  from  all 
around  him  whatever  books  were  afloat,  he  of 
course  soon  exhausted  the  ordinary  market ;  and 
to  find  a  book  obtainable  which  he  did  not  already 
possess,  was  an  event  to  be  looked  to  with  the 
keenest  anxiety,  and  a  chance  to  be  seized  with 
promptitude,  courage,  and  decision.  At  last,  how 
ever,  he  could  not  supply  the  cravings  of  his  ap 
petite  without  recourse  to  duplicates,  and  far  more 
than  duplicates.  His  friend  Dibdin  said  of  him, 
"  He  has  now  and  then  an  ungovernable  passion 
to  possess  more  copies  of  a  book  than  there  were 
ever  parties  to  a  deed  or  stamina  to  a  plant ;  and 


94  BIS  NATURE. 

therefore  I  cannot  call  him  a  duplicate  or  a  tripli 
cate  collector."  He  satisfied  his  own  conscience 
by  adopting  a  creed,  which  he  enounced  thus:  — 
"  Why,  you  see,  sir,  no  man  can  comfortably  do 
without  three  copies  of  a  book.  One  he  must  have 
for  a  show  copy,  and  he  will  probably  keep  it  at 
his  country-house ;  another  he  will  require  for  his 
own  use  and  reference  ;  and  unless  he  is  inclined 
to  part  with  tin's,  which  is  very  inconvenient,  or 
risk  the  injury  of  his  best  copy,  he  must  needs  have 
a  third  at  the  service  of  his  friends." 

This  last  necessity  is  the  key-note  to  Heber's 
popularity:  he  was  a  liberal  and  kindly  man,  and 
though,  like  Wolsey,  he  was  unsatisfied  in  getting, 
yet,  like  him,  in  bestowing  he  was  most  princely. 
Many  scholars  and  authors  obtained  the  raw  mate 
rial  for  their  labors  from  his  transcendent  stores. 
These,  indeed,  might  be  said  less  to  be  personal  to 
himself  than  to  be  a  feature  in  the  literary  geog 
raphy  of  Europe.  "  Some  years  ago,"  says  the 
writer  in  the  G-entlemans  Magazine,  "he  built  a 
new  library  at  his  house  at  Hodnet,  which  is  said 
to  be  full.  His  residence  at  Pimlico,  where  he  died, 
is  filled,  like  Magliabechi's  at  Florence,  with  books, 
from  the  top  to  the  bottom  —  every  chair,  every 
table,  every  passage,  containing  piles  of  erudition.1 

1  [This  reminds  me  of  a  story  which  I  heard  the  wife  of  a 
book-lover  of  incomparably  humbler  means  and  more  modest 
pretensions  than  Heber  tell,  with  rueful  merriment.  She  had 
gone  into  the  country  to  pass  the  summer  months,  leaving  the 
man  that  owned  her  in  town,  to  solace  himself  with  his  dearly 
beloved  silent  companions,  interrupting  his  ruminations  by  occa- 


THE  AUCTION-HAUNTER.  95 

He  had  another  house  in  York  Street,  leading  to 
Great  James's  Street,  Westminster,  laden  from  the 
ground-floor  to  the  garret  with  curious  books.  He 
had  a  library  in  the  High  Street,  Oxford,  an  im 
mense  library  at  Paris,  another  at  Antwerp,  another 
at  Brussels,  another  at  Ghent,  and  at  other  places 
in  the  Low  Countries  and  in  Germany." 

sional  flying  visits  to  those  of  a  noisier  sort.  When  she  went 
away,  every  shelf,  not  only  of  every  case,  but  of  every  closet  to 
which  a  man  could  lay  claim,  was  loaded  down  with  books,  and 
every  available  trunk  and  box  was  stuffed  to  bursting  with  the 
same  ponderous  and  dusty  wealth.  As  autumn  approached,  she 
had  occasion  to  go  suddenly  to  town,  and  went  without  warning. 
Having  reached  home,  she  entered  the  library,  expecting  to  find 
her  husband.  He  was  not  there;  and  had  he  been  there,  he 
would  have  been  obliged  to  stand  or  perch  ;  for  every  table  and 
every  chair  was  heaped  to  groaning  with  books — new-comers. 
This  was  exciting;  but  it  might  have  been  expected  ;  it  was  not 
unnatural.  She  went  up  to  her  own  apartments.  The  same 
sight  met  her  astonished  eye.  Her  very  dressing-bureau,  which 
she  had  opportunely  emptied  before  her  departure,  was  filled  to 
the  last  inch  of  the  last  drawer ;  nay,  even  her  wash-stand  itself, 
top  and  bottom,  was  stuffed  with  musty  lore,  the  outside  of 
which  seemed  much  in  need  of  the  soap  and  water  which  it  had 
displaced.  And  last  aggravation  of  all,  there  was  the  gude-man 
himself  stretched  at  full  length  upon  the  nuptial  couch,  in  breezy 
undress,  hard  at  work  with  pencil  and  paper,  and  surrounded 
with  a  barricade  of  books,  over  which  she  peered  to  see  it  doubly 
strong  along  the  place  where  her  lovely  limbs  had  lain.  She  de 
clared  war  upon  the  spot.  But,  as  in  the  case  of  all  wives  like 
her,  there  was  a  cherished  traitor  in  her  own  camp ;  and  she 
was  utterly  defeated.  —  W.] 


PART  IL—HIS  FUNCTIONS. 

(Eljc  (jobbi). 

AVING  devoted  the  preceding  pages 
to  the  diagnosis  of  the  book-hunter's 
condition,  or,  in  other  words,  to  the 
different  shapes  which  the  phenom 
ena  peculiar  to  it  assume,  I  now 
propose  to  offer  some  account  of  his  place  in  the 
dispensations  of  Providence,  which  will  probably 
show  that  he  is  not  altogether  a  mischievous  or  a 
merely  useless  member  of  the  human  family,  but 
does  in  reality,  however  unconsciously  to  himself, 
minister  in  his  own  peculiar  way  to  the  service  both 
of  himself  and  others.  This  is  to  be  a  methodical 
discourse,  and  therefore  to  be  divided  and  subdi 
vided,  insomuch  that,  taking  in  the  first  place  his 
services  to  himself,  this  branch  shall  be  subdivided 
into  the  advantages  which  are  purely  material  and 
those  which  are  properly  intellectual. 

And,  first,  of  material  advantages.  Holding  it 
to  be  the  inevitable  doom  of  fallen  man  to  inherit 
some  frailty  or  failing,  it  would  be  difficult,  had  he 
a  Pandora's  box-full  to  pick  and  choose  among,  to 
find  one  less  dangerous  or  offensive.  As  the  judi- 


THE  HOBBY.  97 

clous  physician  informs  the  patient,  suffering  under 
some  cutaneous  or  other  external  torture,  that  the 
poison  lay  deep  in  his  constitution  —  that  it  must 
have  worked  in  some  shape  —  and  well  it  is  that  it 
has  taken  one  so  innocuous  —  so  may  even  the 
book-hunter  be  congratulated  on  having  taken  the 
innate  moral  malady  of  all  the  race  in  a  very  gentle 
and  rather  a  salubrious  form.  To  pass  over  gam 
bling,  tippling,  and  other  practices  which  cannot  be 
easily  spoken  of  in  good  society,  let  us  look  to  the 
other  shapes  in  which  man  lets  himself  out  —  for 
instance  to  horse-racing,  hunting,  photography,, 
shooting,  fishing,  cigars,  dog-fancying,  dog-fighting,, 
the  ring,  the  cockpit,  phrenology,  revivalism,  social 
ism  ;  which  of  these  contains  so  small  a  balance  of 
evil  ?  counting  of  course  that  the  amount  of  pleasure 
conferred  is  equal  —  for  it  is  only  on  the  datum 
that  the  book-hunter  has  as  much  satisfaction  from 
his  pursuit  as  the  fox-hunter,  the  photographer,  and 
so  on,  has  in  his  that  a  fair  comparison  can  be 
struck.  These  pursuits,  one  and  all,  leave  little  or 
nothing  that  is  valuable  behind  them,  except,  it 
may  be,  that  some  of  them  are  conducive  to  health, 
by  giving  exercise  to  the  body  and  a  genial  excite 
ment  to  the  mind  ;  but  every  hobby  gives  the  lat 
ter,  and  the  former  may  be  easily  obtained  in  some 
other  shape.  They  leave  little  or  nothing  be 
hind  :  even  the  photographer's  portfolio  will  bring 
scarcely  anything  under  the  hammer  after  the 
death  of  him  whose  solace  and  pursuit  it  had  been, 
should  the  positives  remain  visible,  which  may  be 
7 


98  HIS  FUNCTIONS. 

doubted.  And  as  to  the  other  enumerated  pur 
suits,  some  of  them,  as  we  all  know,  are  immensely 
costly,  all  unproductive  as  they  are. 

But  the  book-hunter  may  possibly  leave  a  little 
fortune  behind  him.  His  hobby,  in  fact,  merges 
into  an  investment.  This  is  the  light  in  which  a 
celebrated  Quaker  collector  of  paintings  put  his 
conduct,  when  it  was  questioned  by  the  brethren, 
in  virtue  of  that  right  to  admonish  one  another  con 
cerning  the  errors  of  their  ways,  which  makes  them 
so  chary  in  employing  domestic  servants  of  their 
own  persuasion.  "  What  had  the  brother  paid  for 
that  bauble  (a  picture  by  Wouvermans),  for  in 
stance  ?  "  "  Well,  £300."  "  Was  not  that,  then, 
an  awful  wasting  of  his  substance  on  vanities  ?  " 
"  No.  He  had  been  offered  £900  for  it.  If  any 
of  the  Friends  was  prepared  to  offer  him  a  better 
investment  of  his  money  than  one  that  could  be 
realized  at  a  profit  of  200  per  cent.,  he  was  ready 
to  alter  the  existing  disposal  of  his  capital." 

It  is  true  that  amateur  purchasers  do  not,  in  the 
long  run,  make  a  profit,  though  an  occasional  bar 
gain  may  pass  through  their  hands.  It  is  not 
maintained  that,  in  the  general  case,  the  libraries  of 
collectors  would  be  sold  for  more  than  they  cost,  or 
even  for  nearly  so  much ;  but  they  are  always 
worth  something,  which  is  more  than  can  be  said  of 
the  residue  of  other  hobbies  and  pursuits.  Nay, 
farther  ;  the  scholarly  collector  of  books  is  not  like 
the  ordinary  helpless  amateur ;  for  although,  doubt 
less,  nothing  will  rival  the  dealer's  instinct  for 


THE  HOBBY.  99 

knowing  the  money-value  of  an  article,  though  he 
may  know  nothing  else  about  it,  yet  there  is  often  a 
subtle  depth  in  the  collector's  educated  knowledge 
which  the  other  cannot  match,  and  bargains  may 
be  obtained  off  the  counters  of  the  most  acute. 

A  small  sprinkling  of  these  —  even  the  chance  of 
them  —  excites  him,  like  the  angler's  bites  and 
rises,  and  gives  its  zest  to  his  pursuit.  It  is  the 
reward  of  his  patience,  his  exertion,  and  his  skill, 
after  the  manner  in  which  Monkbarns  has  so  well 
spoken  ;  and  it  is  certain  that,  in  many  instances, 
a  collector's  library  has  sold  for  more  than  it  cost 
him. 

No  doubt,  a  man  may  ruin  himself  by  purchasing 
costly  books,  as  by  indulgence  in  any  other  costly 
luxury,  but  the  chances  of  calamity  are  compara 
tively  small  in  this  pursuit.  A  thousand  pounds 
will  go  a  great  way  in  book-collecting,  if  the  col 
lector  be  true  to  the  traditions  of  his  pursuit,  such 
as  they  are  to  be  hereafter  expounded.  There  has 
been  one  instance,  doubtless,  in  the  records  of  bib 
liomania,  of  two  thousand  pounds  having  been 
given  for  one  book.  But  how  many  instances  far 
more  flagrant  could  be  found  in  picture-buying  ? 
Look  around  upon  the  world  and  see  how  many 
men  are  the  victims  of  libraries,  and  compare  them 
with  those  whom  the  stud,  the  kennel,  and  the  pre 
serve  have  brought  to  the  Gazette.  Find  out,  too, 
anywhere,  if  you  can,  the  instances  in  which  the  mo 
ney  scattered  in  these  forms  comes  back  again,  and 
brings  with  it  a  large  profit,  as  the  expenditure  of 


100  HIS  FUNCTIONS. 

the  Duke  of  Roxburghe  did  when  his  library  was 
sold.1 

But  it  is  necessary  to  arrest  this  train  of  argu 
ment,  lest  its  tenor  might  be  misunderstood.  The 
mercenary  spirit  must  not  be  admitted  to  a  share  in 
the  enjoyments  of  the  book-hunter.  If,  after  he 
has  taken  his  last  survey  of  his  treasures,  and  spent 
his  last  hour  in  that  quiet  library,  where  he  has 
ever  found  his  chief  solace  against  the  wear  and 
worry  of  the  world,  the  book-hunter  shall  be  taken 

1  [True,  the  discreet  expenditure  of  money  in  books  is,  under 
ordinary  circumstances,  and  if  the  books  be  well  cared  for,  a 
safe,  and  sometimes  a  profitable,  investment.  But  let  not  any 
man  be  therefore  tempted  into  spending  money  thus  which  he 
cannot  well  afford  to  do  without  and  let  lie  idle.  A  library  pays 
no  interest ;  and  more  volumes  than  an  ordinary  bookcaseful,  or 
two,  are  an  occasion  of  great  trouble  and  of  some  expense.  And 
above  all,  let  no  man  gather  together  more  books  than  all  of  us 
who  are  tolerably  well-to-do  have  in  this  country,  unless  he  has 
good  reason  to  believe  himself  settled  in  a  home  for  life.  The 
moving  and  reshelving  of  anything  like  a  library — that  is,  of 
more  than  a  thousand  or  twelve  hundred  volumes  —  is  inex 
pressibly  troublesome  and  vexatious ;  and  besides,  let  it  be  done 
with  as  much  care  as  possible,  the  books  are  almost  sure  to 
receive  some  injury.  A  well-chosen  library,  even  a  small 
one,  of  two  or  three  thousand  volumes,  is  a  rich  possession, 
full  of  pure  enjoyment  to  a  man  worthy  of  it;  but  unless  he  is 
beyond  the  consideration  of  hours  and  dollars,  and  even  then,  it 
brings  with  it  corresponding  trouble,  with  this  sad  consequence, 
that,  for  that  very  trouble,  he  will  love  it  and  cling  to  it  the 
more.  No :  the  professional  man  of  letters,  or  the  man  of  ele 
gant  leisure  and  literary  tastes,  with  money  to  spare,  may  justi 
fiably  collect  books,  to  a  moderate  degree ;  but  let  all  others, 
after  gathering  enough  books  to  live  upon,  if  they  must  collect 
something,  collect  money,  which  will  always  command  money's 
worth.  —  W.] 


THE  HOBBY.  101 

to  his  final  place  of  rest,  and  it  is  then  discovered 
that  the  circumstances  of  the  family  require  his 
treasures  to  be  dispersed,  —  should  the  unexpected 
result  be  that  his  pursuit  has  not  been  so  ruin 
ously  costly  after  all  —  nay,  that  his  expenditure 
has  actually  fructified  —  it  is  well.  But  if  the  book- 
hunter  allow  money-making  —  even  for  those  he  is 
to  leave  behind  —  to  be  combined  with  his  pursuit, 
it  loses  its  fresh  relish,  its  exhilarating  influence, 
and  becomes  the  source  of  wretched  cares  and  pal 
try  anxieties.  Where  money  is  the  object,  let  a 
man  speculate  or  become  a  miser  —  a  very  enviable 
condition  to  him  who  has  the  saving  grace  to 
achieve  it,  if  we  hold  with  Byron  that  the  accu 
mulation  of  money  is  the  only  passion  that  never 
cloys. 

Let  not  the  collector,  therefore,  ever,  unless  in 
some  urgent  and  necessary  circumstances,  part  with 
any  of  his  treasures.  Let  him  not  even  have  re 
course  to  that  practice  called  barter,  which  political 
philosophers  tell  us  is  the  universal  resource  of 
mankind  preparatory  to  the  invention  of  money  as 
a  circulating  medium  and  means  of  exchange.  Let 
him  confine  all  his  transactions  in  the  market  to 
purchasing  only.  No  good  ever  comes  of  gentlemen 
amateurs  buying  and  selling.  They  will  either  be 
systematic  losers,  or  they  will  acquire  shabby,  ques 
tionable  habits,  from  which  the  professional  dealers 
—  on  whom,  perhaps,  they  look  down  —  are  ex 
empt.  There  are  two  trades  renowned  for  the 
quackery  and  the  imposition  with  which  they  are 


102  HIS  FUNCTIONS. 

habitually  stained  —  the  trade  in  horses  and  the 
trade  in  old  pictures ;  and  these  have,  I  verily  be 
lieve,  earned  their  evil  reputation  chiefly  from  this, 
that  they  are  trades  in  which  gentlemen  of  inde 
pendent  fortune  and  considerable  position  are  in  the 
habit  of  embarking. 

e> 

The  result  is  not  so  unaccountable  as  it  might 
seem.  The  professional  dealer,  however  smart  he 
may  be,  takes  a  sounder  estimate  of  any  individual 
transaction  than  the  amateur.  It  is  his  object,  not 
so  much  to  do  any  single  stroke  of  trade  very  suc 
cessfully,  as  to  deal  acceptably  with  the  public,  and 
make  his  money  in  the  long  run.  Hence  he  does 
not  place  an  undue  estimate  on  the  special  article 
he  is  to  dispose  of,  but  will  let  it  go  at  a  loss,  if  that 
is  likely  to  prove  the  most  beneficial  course  for  his 
trade  at  large.  He  has  no  special  attachment  to 
any  of  the  articles  in  which  he  deals,  and  no  blindly 
exaggerated  appreciation  of  their  merits  and  value. 
They  come  and  go  in  an  equable  stream,  and  the 
cargo  of  yesterday  is  sent  abroad  to  the  world  with 
the  same  methodical  indifference  with  which  that 
of  to-day  is  unshipped.  It  is  otherwise  with  the 
amateur.  He  feels  towards  the  article  he  is  to  part 
with  all  the  prejudiced  attachment,  and  all  the  con 
sequent  over-estimate,  of  a  possessor.  Hence  he 
and  the  market  take  incompatible  views  as  to  value, 
and  he  is  apt  to  become  unscrupulous  in  his  efforts 
to  do  justice  to  himself.  Let  the  single-minded  and 
zealous  collector,  then,  turn  the  natural  propensity  to 
over-estimate  one's  own  into  its  proper  and  legiti- 


THE  HOBBY.  103 

mate  channel.  Let  him  guard  his  treasures  as 
things  too  sacred  for  commerce,  and  say,  Procul, 
o  procul  este,  prqfani,  to  all  who  may  attempt  by 
bribery  and  corruption  to  drag  them  from  their 
legitimate  shelves.  If,  in  any  weak  moment,  he 
yield  to  mercenary  temptation,  he  will  be  forever 
mourning  after  the  departed  unit  of  his  treasure  — 
the  lost  sheep  of  his  flock.  If  it  seems  to  be  in  the 
decrees  of  fate  that  all  his  gatherings  are  to  be  dis 
persed  abroad  after  he  has  gone  to  his  rest,  let  him, 
at  all  events,  retain  the  reliance  that  on  them,  as  on 
other  things  beloved,  he  may  have  his  last  look  : 
there  will  be  many  changes  after  that,  and  this  will 
be  among  them.  Nor,  in  his  final  reflections  on 
his  -conduct  to  himself  and  to  those  he  is  to  leave, 
will  he  be  disturbed  by  the  thought  that  the  hobby 
which  was  his  enjoyment,  has  been  in  any  wise  the 
more  costly  to  him  that  he  has  not  made  it  a  means 
of  mercenary  money-getting.1 

1  Atticus  was  under  the  scandal  of  having  disposed  of  his 
books,  and  Cicero  sometimes  hints  to  him  that  he  might  let 
more  of  them  go  his  way.  In  truth,  Atticus  carried  this  so  far, 
however,  that  he  seems  to  have  been  a  sort  of  dealer,  and  the 
earliest  instance  of  a  capitalist  publisher.  He  had  slaves  whom 
he  occupied  in  copying,  and  was  in  fact  much  in  the  position  of 
a  rich  Virginian  or  Carolinian,  who  should  find  that  the  most 
profitable  investment  for  his  stock  of  slaves  is  a  printing  and 
publishing  establishment. 


104  HIS  FUNCTIONS. 


P^ultorn  Umber,  or  Uoljcmtan  of 
£itcraturr. 


AVING  so  put  in  a  plea  for  this  pur 
suit,  as  about  the  least  costly  foible  to 
which  those  who  can  afford  to  indulge 
in  foibles  can  devote  themselves,  one 
might  descant  on  certain  auxiliary  advantages  —  as, 
that  it  is  not  apt  to  bring  its  votaries  into  low 
company  ;  that  it  offends  no  one,  and  it  is  not  likely 
to  foster  actions  of  damages  for  nuisance,  trespass, 
or  assault,  and  the  like.  But  rather  let  us  turn  our 
attention  to  the  intellectual  advantages  accompany 
ing  the  pursuit,  since  the  proper  function  of  books 
is  in  the  general  case  associated  with  intellectual 
culture  and  occupation.  It  would  seem  that,  ac 
cording  to  a  received  prejudice  or  opinion,  there  is 
one  exception  to  this  general  connection,  in  the  case 
of  the  possessors  of  libraries,  who  are  under  a  vehe 
ment  suspicion  of  not  reading  their  books.  Well, 
perhaps  it  is  true  in  the  sense  in  which  those  who 
utter  the  taunt  understand  the  reading  of  a  book. 
That  one  should  possess  no  books  beyond  his  power 
of  perusal  —  that  he  should  buy  no  faster  than  as 
he  can  read  straight  through  what  he  has  already 

J 

"bought  —  is  a  supposition  alike  preposterous  and 
unreasonable.  "  Surely  you  have  far  more  books 
than  you  can  read,"  is  sometimes  the  inane  remark 
of  the  barbarian  who  gets  his  books,  volume  by  vol- 


THE  DESULTORY  READER.  1Q5 

ume,  from  some  circulating  library  or  reading  club, 
and  reads  them  all  through,  one  after  the  other, 
with  a  dreary  dutifulness,  that  he  may  be  sure  he 
has  got  the  value  of  his  money. 

It  is  true  that  there  are  some  books  — as  Homer, 
Virgil,  Horace,  Milton,  Shakespeare,  and  Scott  — 
which  every  man  should  read  who  has  the  oppor 
tunity —  should  read,  mark,  learn,  and  inwardly 
digest.  To  neglect  the  opportunity  of  becoming 
familiar  with  them  is  deliberately  to  sacrifice  the 
position  in  the  social  scale  which  an  ordinary  edu 
cation  enables  its  possessor  to  reach.  But  is  one 
next  to  read  through  the  sixty  and  odd  folio  vol 
umes  of  the  Bolandist  Lives  of  the  Saints,  and  the 
new  edition  of  the  Byzantine  historians,  and  the 
State  Trials,  and  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  and 
Moreri,  and  the  Statutes  at  Large,  and  the  Gentle 
man's  Magazine  from  the  beginning,  each  sepa 
rately,  and  in  succession  ?  Such  a  course  of 
reading  would  certainly  do  a  good  deal  towards 
weakening  the  mind,  if  it  did  not  create  absolute 
insanity. 

But  in  all  these  just  named,  even  in  the  Statutes 
at  Large,  and  in  thousands  upon  thousands  of  other 
books,  there  is  precious  honey  to  be  gathered  by 
the  literary  busy  bee,  who  passes  on  from  flower 
to  flower.  In  fact,  "  a  course  of  reading,"  as  it  is 
sometimes  called,  is  a  course  of  regimen  for  dwarf 
ing  the  mind,  like  the  drugs  which  dog-breeders 
give  to  King-Charles  spaniels  to  keep  them  small. 
Within  the  span  of  life  allotted  to  man  there  is  but 


106  nis  FUNCTIONS. 

a  certain  number  of  books  that  it  is  practicable  to 
read  through  ;  and  it  is  not  possible  to  make  a  selec 
tion  that  will  not,  in  a  manner,  wall  in  the  mind 
from  a  free  expansion  over  the  republic  of  letters. 
The  being  chained,  as  it  were,  to  one  intellect  in 
the  perusal  straight  on  of  any  large  book,  is  a  sort 
of  mental  slavery  superinducing  imbecility.1  Even 
Gibbon's  Decline  and  Fall,  luminous  and  compre 
hensive  as  its  philosophy  is,  and  rapid  and  brilliant 

1  [Criticism  of  the  style  of  this  charming  book  is  no  part  of 
the  purpose  of  these  notes ;  but  I  am  sure  that  an  author  who 
writes  English  with  so  much  clearness  and  idiomatic  force, 
should  lie  see  this  edition,  will  take  in  good  part  a  kindly  plea 
against  the  use  of  such  a  useless,  overgrown  pretender  in  our 
language  as  "  superinduce."  It  is  lamentably  common,  I  must 
admit,  and  is  becoming  daily  more  so.  But  therefore  all  the 
more  should  we  withstand  it.  Superinduce  !  why  not,  bring 
on  ?  Is  there  a  shade  of  meaning  in  the  four  syllables  that 
there  is  not  in  the  two  ?  And  yet  I  once  heard  a  worthy  woman 
who  wished  to  be  elegant,  say  of  her  husband,  that  he  was  "  suf- 
ferin'  very  bad  with  bronehriches  which  were  superinduced  by 
excessive  exposure."  The  truth  and  the  English  of  which  was 
that  the  good  man  had  a  cougli  brought  on  by  getting  very  wet 
and  cold.  How  many  good  and  really  sensible  people  have  I 
heard  painfully  twisting  simple  English  tongues  round  these  slip 
pery,  many-syllabled  strangers,  when  good  home  words,  which 
they  were  born  to  speak,  would  have  done  their  work  much  bet 
ter.  Nay,  have  we  not  lately  seen  the  "  Tribune  "  itself  back 
sliding  upon  this  point  of  sound  doctrine  ?  There  we  expected, 
and  always  used  to  find,  real  English  ;  a  little  rough  and  strong 
sometimes,  like  the  flavor  of  a  wild  grape,  but  for  all  that  none 
the  less  welcome.  But  even  a  day  or  two  ago  was  there  not  an 
article,  signed,  alas  !  "  H.  G.,"  in  which  it  was  said  that  the  insur 
gent  slaveholders  when  they  determined  to  destroy  the  Repub 
lic  "at  once  inaugurated  the  robbery  of  forts,  arsenals,  armories, 
custom-houses,  and  mints,"  and  that  "  they  had  consummated  at 


THE  DESULTORY  READER.  1Q7 

the  narrative,  will  become  deleterious  mental  food 
if  consumed  straight  through  without  variety.  It 

C3  O  t/ 

will  be  well  to  relieve  it  occasionally  with  a  little 
Boston's  Fourfold  State,  or  Hervey's  Meditations, 
or  Sturm's  Reflections  for  Every  Day  in  the  Year, 
or  Don  Juan,  or  Ward's  History  of  Stoke-upon- 
Trent.1 

Isaac  D'Israeli  says,  "  Mr.  Maurice,  in  his  ani 
mated  memoirs,  has  recently  acquainted  us  with  a 

least  a  hundred  of  these  gigantic  thefts  "  !  How  are  the  mighty 
fallen  !  Why  not,  began  the  robbery,  and  committed  the  theft  ? 
Let  consummate  and  inaugurate,  except  as  specific  terms,  go 
with  superinduce  and  ovation,  and  all  their  kin,  into  the  com 
pany  in  which  fire  is  called  the  devouring  element,  a  drunkard, 
an  inebriate,  and  a  nation,  a  nationality. — W.] 

1  [Add  to  these  General  Butler's  orders  and  official  correspond 
ence  at  New  Orleans,  which,  for  hitting  the  nail  square  upon  the 
head,  and  clinching  it  with  a  twist  of  humor,  have  not  been  sur 
passed  by  any  writing  of  their  kind.  By  reading  them,  the 
man  weary  with  the  weight  of  the  grand  style  or  fretted  with 
the  flippancy  of  the  familiar  may  obtain  real  mental  refresh 
ment.  At  the  same  time  he  cannot  but  admire  the  sagacity 
which  contrived  the  measures  which  they  announced,  and  the 
true  benevolence  of  their  purpose.  Rarely  has  a  man  been 
placed  in  such  trying  circumstances  as  those  in  which  General 
Butler  found  himself  placed  by  the  capture  of  New  Orleans.  Still 
more  rarely  has  a  man  so  placed  administered  affairs  so  wisely  : 
—  so  wisely  and  so  firmly  that  in  that  city,  the  most  disorderly 
and  dangerous  place  in  the  country  in  ordinary  times,  there  has 
been  such  quiet  and  order  since  he  settled  himself  well  in  power, 
(as  I  have  been  told  by  foreigners  who  came  from  there, )  that  a 
woman  might  walk  at  night  from  one  end  of  the  town  to  an 
other,  with  a  treasure  in  her  keeping,  without  fear  of  molesta 
tion  ; —  and  this  with  the  place  in  possession  of  a  conquering 
army  !  To  be  sure,  General  Butler  knew  his  men ;  and  so  they 
share  his  honor.  —  W.] 


108  ins  FUNCTIONS. 

fact  which  may  be  deemed  important  in  the  life  of 
a  literary  man.  He  tells  us,  4  We  have  been  just 
informed  that  Sir  William  Jones  invariably  read 
through  every  year  the  works  of  Cicero.' '  What 
a  task  !  one  would  be  curious  to  know  whether  he 
felt  it  less  heavy  in  the  twelve  duodecimos  of 
Elzevir,  or  the  nine  quartos  of  the  Geneva  edition. 
Did  he  take  to  it  doggedly,  as  Dr.  Johnson  says, 
and  read  straight  through  according  to  the  editor's 

o  o  o 

arrangement,  or  did  he  pick  out  the  plums  and  take 
the  dismal  work  afterwards  ?  For  the  first  year  or 
two  of  his  task,  he  is  not  to  be  pitied  perhaps  about 
the  Offices,  or  the  dialogue  on  Friendship,  or 
Scipio's  Dream,  or  even  the  capital  speeches  against 
Verres  and  Catiline  ;  but  those  tiresome  letters,  and 
the  Tusculan  Questions,  and  the  De  Natura ! l  It  is 
a  pity  he  did  not  live  till  Angelo  Mai  found  the  De 
Republica.  What  disappointed  every  one  else  might 
perhaps  have  commanded  the  admiration  of  the 
great  orientalist. 

But  here  follows,  on  the  same  authority,  a  more 
wonderful  performance  still.    "  The  famous  Bourda- 

1  [I  venture  to  put  in  a  plea  for  the  exemption  of  the  Tuscu 
lan  Questions  from  this  censure.  They  are  not  high  and  mighty, 
or  soaring,  or  profound,  or  even  dramatic,  like  the  Platonic  dia 
logues,  from  the  prolixity  and  occasional  childish  simplicity  of 
which,  however,  they  are  free.  But  they  treat  of  great  topics 
with  such  simplicity  and  clearness,  and  in  such  a  spirit  of  candid 
inquiry,  and  do  this  in  such  elegant  Latin,  that  it  seems  to  me 
that  a  man  might  read  them  occasionally  with  great  pleasure. 
Such  at  least  is  the  impression  left  upon  my  memory  by  a  book 
which  I  have  not  seen  since  my  first  college  year.  —  W.j 


THE  DESULTORY  READER. 

lone  reperused  every  year  St.  Paul,  St.  Chrysostom, 
and  Cicero." l  The  sacred  author  makes  but  a 
slight  addition  to  the  bulk,  but  the  works  of  St. 
Chrysostom  are  entombed  in  eleven  folios  !  Bourda- 
loue  died  at  the  age  of  seventy-two  ;  and  if  he  be 
gan  his  task  at  the  age  of  twenty-two,  he  must 
have  done  it  over  fifty  times.  It  requires  nerves  of 
more  than  ordinary  strength  to  contemplate  such  a 
statement  with  equanimity.  The  tortures  of  the 
classic  Hades,  and  the  disgusting  inflictions  courted 
by  the  anchorites  of  old  and  the  Brahmins  of  later 
times,  do  not  approach  the  horrors  of  such  an  act  of 
self-torture. 

Of  course  any  one  ambitious  of  enlightening  the 
world  on  either  the  political  or  the  literary  history 
of  Rome  at  the  commencement  of  the  empire,  must 
be  as  thoroughly  acquainted  with  every  word  of 
Cicero  as  the  writer  of  the  Times  leader  on  a  criti 
cal  debate  is  with  the  newly  delivered  speeches. 
The  more  fortunate  vagabond  reader,  too,  lounging 
about  among  the  Letters,  will  open  many  little 
veins  of  curious  contemporary  history  and  biogra 
phy,  which  he  can  follow  up  in  Tacitus,  Sallust, 
Cresar,  and  the  contemporary  poets.  Both  are  ut 
terly  different  from  the  stated-task  reader,  who  has 
come  under  a  vow  to  work  so  many  hours  or  get 
through  so  many  pages  in  a  given  time.  They  are 
drawn  by  their  occupation,  whether  work  or  play ; 
he  drives  himself  to  his.  All  such  work  is  inflic- 

1  Curiosities  of  Literature,  iii.  339. 


110  ins  FUNCTIONS. 

tion,  varying  from  the  highest  point  of  martyrdom 
down  to  tasteless  drudgery  ;  and  it  is  as  profitless 
as  other  supererogatory  inflictions,  since  the  task- 
reader  comes  to  look  at  his  words  without  following 

o 

out  what  they  suggest,  or  even  absorbing  their 
grammatical  sense,  much  as  the  stupid  ascetics  of 
old  went  through  their  penitential  readings,  or  as 
their  representatives  of  the  present  day,  chiefly  of 
the  female  sex,  read  "  screeds  of  good  books," 
which  they  have  not  "  the  presumption  "  to  under 
stand.  The  literary  Bohemian  is  sometimes  to  be 
pitied  when  his  facility  of  character  exposes  him  to 
have  a  modification  of  this  infliction  forced  upon 
him.  This  will  occur  when  he  happens  to  be  living 
in  a  house  frequented  by  "  a  good  reader,"  who 
solemnly  devotes  certain  hours  to  the  perusal  of 
passages  from  the  English  or  French  classics  for 
the  benefit  of  the  company,  and  makes  himself 
the  mortal  enemy  of  every  guest  who  absents 
himself.1 

As  to  collectors,  it  is  quite  true  that  they  do  not 
in  general  read  their  books  successively  straight 
through,  and  the  practice  of  desultory  reading,  as 
it  is  sometimes  termed,  must  be  treated  as  part  of 
their  case,  and  if  a  failing,  one  cognate  with  their 
habit  of  collecting.  They  are  notoriously  addicted 
to  the  practice  of  standing  arrested  on  some  round 
of  a  ladder,  where,  having  mounted  up  for  some 
certain  book,  they  have  by  wayward  chance  fallen 

1  [And  often  gains  a  mortal  though  secret  enemy  in  every 
guest  who  comes  and  stays.  —  W.] 


THE  DESULTORY  READER. 

upon  another,  in  which,  at  the  first  opening,  has 
come  up  a  passage  which  fascinates  the  finder  as 
the  eye  of  the  Ancient  Mariner  fascinated  the 
wedding-guest,  and  compels  him  to  stand  there 
poised  on  his  uneasy  perch  and  read.  Peradven- 
ture  the  matter  so  perused  suggests  another  pas 
sage  in  some  other  volume  which  it  will  be  satis 
factory  and  interesting  to  find,  and  so  another  and 
another  search  is  made,  while  the  hours  pass  by 
unnoticed,  and  the  day  seems  all  too  short  for 
the  pursuit  which  is  a  luxury  and  an  enjoyment, 
at  the  same  time  that  it  fills  the  mind  with  varied 
knowledge  and  wisdom. 

The  fact  is  that  the  book-hunter,  if  he  be  gen 
uine,  and  have  his  heart  in  his  pursuit,  is  also  a 
reader  and  a  scholar.  Though  he  may  be  more 
or  less  peculiar,  and  even  eccentric  in  his  style 
of  reading,  there  is  a  necessary  intellectual  thread 
of  connection  running  through  the  objects  of  his 
search  which  predicates  some  acquaintance  with 
the  contents  of  the  accumulating  volumes.  Even 
although  he  profess  a  devotion  to  mere  external 
features  —  the  style  of  binding,  the  cut  or  uncut 
leaves,  the  presence  or  the  absence  of  the  gilding 
—  yet  the  department  in  literature  holds  more  or 
less  connection  with  this  outward  sign.  He  who 
has  a  passion  for  old  editions  of  the  classics  in 
vellum  bindings  —  Stephenses  or  Aldines  —  will 
not  be  put  off  with  a  copy  of  Robinson  Crusoe 
or  the  Ready  Reckoner,  bound  to  match  and 
range  with  the  contents  of  his  shelves.  Those 


112  II fS  FUNCTIONS. 

who  so  vehemently  affect  some  external  peculi 
arity  are  the  eccentric  exceptions  ;  yet  even  they 
have  some  consideration  for  the  contents  of  a  book 
as  well  as  for  its  coat. 


Collector  anb  tlje  Scljolar. 

HE  possession,  or  in  some  other  shape 
the  access  to  a  far  larger  collection  of 
books  than  can  be  read  through  in  a 

O 

lifetime,  is  in  fact  an  absolute  condi 
tion  of  intellectual  culture  and  expansion.  The 
library  is  the  great  intellectual  stratification  in 
which  the  literary  investigator  works  —  examining 
its  external  features,  or  perhaps  driving  a  shaft 
through  its  various  layers  —  passing  over  this 
stratum  as  not  immediate  to  his  purpose,  examin 
ing  that  other  with  the  minute  attention  of  mi 
croscopic  investigation.  The  geologist,  the  bota 
nist,  and  the  zoologist,  are  not  content  to  receive 
one  specimen  after  another  into  their  homes,  to  be 
thoroughly  and  separately  examined,  each  in  suc 
cession,  as  novel-readers  go  through  the  volumes 
of  a  circulating  library  at  twopence  a  night  — 
they  have  all  the  world  of  nature  before  them, 
and  examine  as  their  scientific  instincts  or  their 
fancies  suggest.  For  all  inquirers,  like  pointers, 
have  a  sort  of  instinct,  sharpened  by  training  and 
practice,  the  power  and  acuteness  of  which  aston- 


THE  COLLECTOR  AND  THE  SCHOLAR.      H3 

ish  the  unlearned.  "  Reading  with  the  fingers," 
as  Basnage  said  of  Bayle  —  turning  the  pages 
rapidly  over  and  alighting  on  the  exact  spot 
where  the  thing  wanted  is  to  be  found  —  is  far 
from  a  superficial  faculty,  as  some  deem  it  to  be, 
—  it  is  the  thorooghest  test  of  active  scholarship. 
It  was  what  enabled  Bayle  to  collect  so  many 
flowers  of  literature,  all  so  interesting,  and  yet  all 
found  in  corners  so  distant  and  obscure.  In  fact, 
there  are  subtle  dexterities,  acquired  by  sagacious 
experience  in  searching  for  valuable  little  trinkets 
in  great  libraries,  just  as  in  other  pursuits.  A 
great  deal  of  that  appearance  of  dry  drudgery 
which  excites  the  pitying  amazement  of  the  by 
stander  is  nimbly  evaded.  People  acquire  a  sort 
of  instinct,  picking  the  valuables  out  of  the  use 
less  verbiage  or  the  passages  repeated  from  former 
authors.  It  is  soon  found  what  a  great  deal  of  lit 
erature  has  been  the  mere  "  pouring  out  of  one 
bottle  into  another,"  as  the  Anatomist  of  Melan 
choly  terms  it.  There  are  those  terrible  folios  of 
the  scholastic  divines,  the  civilians,  and  the  can 
onists,  their  majestic  stream  of  central  print  over 
flowing  into  rivulets  of  marginal  notes  sedgy  with 
citations.  Compared  with  these,  all  the  intellectual 
efforts  of  our  recent  degenerate  days  seem  the  work 
of  pigmies  ;  and  for  any  of  us  even  to  profess  to 
read  all  that  some  of  those  indomitable  giants 
wrote,  would  seem  an  audacious  undertaking.  But, 
in  fact,  they  were  to  a  great  extent  solemn  shams, 
since  the  bulk  of  their  work  was  merely  that  of 
8 


114  HIS  FUNCTIONS. 

the  clerk  wlio  copies  page  after  page  from  other 
people's  writings. 

Surely  these  laborious  old  writers  exhibited  in 
this  matter  the  perfection  of  literary  modesty.  Far 
from  secretly  pilfering,  like  the  modern  plagiarist, 
it  was  their  great  boast  that  they  themselves  had 
not  suggested  the  great  thought  or  struck  out  the 
brilliant  metaphor,  but  that  it  had  been  done  by 
some  one  of  old,  and  was  found  in  its  legitimate 
place  —  a  book.  I  believe  that  if  one  of  these 
laborious  persons  hatched  a  good  idea  of  his  own, 
he  could  experience  no  peace  of  mind  until  he 
found  it  legitimated  by  having  passed  through  an 
earlier  brain  ;  and  that  the  author  who  failed  thus 
to  establish  a  paternity  for  his  thought  would  some 
times  audaciously  set  down  some  great  name  in  his 
crowded  margin,  in  the  hope  that  the  imposition 
might  pass  undiscovered.  Authorities,  of  course, 
enjoy  priority  according  to  their  rank  in  literature. 
First  come  Aristotle  and  Plato,  with  the  other  great 
classical  ancients  ;  next  the  primitive  fathers  ;  then 
Abailard,  Erigena,  Peter  Lombard,  Ramus,  Major, 
and  the  like.  If  the  matter  be  jurisprudence,  we 
shall  have  Marcianus,  Papinianus,  Ulpianus,  Her- 
mogenianus,  and  Tryphonius  to  begin  with  ;  and 
shall  then  pass  through  the  straits  of  Bartolus  and 
Baldus,  on  to  Zuichemus,  Sanchez,  Brissonius,  Rit- 
terhusius,  and  Gothofridus.  If  all  these  say  the 
same  thing,  each  of  the  others  copying  it  from  the 
first  who  uttered  it,  so  much  the  more  valuable  to 
the  literary  world  is  deemed  the  idea  that  has  been 


THE  COLLECTOR  AND  THE  SCHOLAR.      H5 

so  amply  backed  —  it  is  like  a  vote  by  a  great  ma 
jority,  or  a  strongly  signed  petition.  There  is  only 
one  quarter  in  which  this  practice  appears  to  be  fol 
lowed  at  the  present  day — the  composition,  or  the 
compilation,  as  it  may  better  be  termed,  of  English 
law-books.  Having  selected  a  department  to  be 
expounded,  the  first  point  is  to  set  down  all  that 
Coke  said  about  it  two  centuries  and  a  half  ao-o. 

O     ' 

and  all  that  Blackstone  said  about  it  a  century  ago, 
with  passages  in  due  subordination  from  inferior 
authorities.  To  these  are  added  the  rubrics  of 
some  later  cases,  and  a  title-page  and  index,  and 
so  a  new  "  authority "  is  added  to  the  array  on 
the  shelves  of  the  practitioner. 

Whoever  is  well  up  to  such  repetitions  has  many 
short  cuts  through  literature  to  enable  him  to  find 
the  scattered  originalities  of  which  he  may  be  in 
search.  Whether  he  be  the  enthusiastic  investi 
gator  resolved  on  exhausting  any  great  question, 
or  be  a  mere  wayward  potterer,  picking  up  curi 
osities  by  the  way  for  his  own  private  intellectual 
museum,  the  larger  the  collection  at  his  disposal 
the  better  —  it  cannot  be  too  great.1  No  one, 

1  I  am  quite  aware  that  the  authorities  to  the  contrary  are  so 
high  as  to  make  these  sentiments  partake  of  heresy,  if  not  a  sort 
of  classical  profanity. 

"Studiorum  quoque,  quae  liberalissima  impensa  est,  tamdiu 
rationem  habet,  quamdiu  modum.  Quo  innumerabiles  libros 
et  bibliothecas,  quarum  dominus  vix  tota  vita  indices  perlegit  ? 
Onerat  discentem  turba,  non  instruit :  multoque  satius  est  paucis 
te  auctoribus  tradere,  quarn  errare  per  multos.  Quadraginta 
milia  librorum  Alexandria?  arserunt :  pulcherrimum  regia?  opu- 


11 G  ms  FUNCTIONS. 

therefore,  can  be  an  ardent  follower  of  such  a 
pursuit  without  having  his  own  library.  And 
yet  it  is  probably  among  those  whose  stock  is  the 
largest  that  we  shall  find  the  most  frequent  vis 
itors  to  the  British  Museum  and  the  State  Paper 
Office  ;  perhaps,  for  what  cannot  be  found  even 
there,  to  the  Imperial  Library  at  Paris,  or  the 
collections  of  some  of  the  German  universities. 

lentias  monumentum  alius  laudaverit,  sicut  et  Livius,  qui  ele- 
gantiae  regum  cura?que  egregium  id  opus  ait  fuisse.  Non  fuit 
elegnntia  illud  aut  cura,  sed  studiosa  luxuria.  Immo  ne  stu- 
diosa  quideui  :  quoniam  non  in  stadium,  sed  in  spectaculum  corn- 
paraverant :  sicut  plerisque,  ignaris  etiam  servilium  literarum 
libri  non  studiorum  instrumenta,  sed  coenationum  ornamcnta 
sunt.  Paretur  itaque  librorum  quantum  satis  sit,  nihil  in  appa- 
ratum.  Honestius,  inquis,  hoe  te  impensas,  quam  in  Corinthia 
pictasque  tabulas  eflfuderint.  Vitiosum  est  ubique,  quod  nim- 
ium  cst.  Quid  habes,  cur  ignoscas  homini  armaria  citro  atque 
ebore  captanti,  corpora  conquironti  aut  ignotorum  auctorum  aut 
improbatorum,  et  inter  tot  railia  librorum  oscitanti,  cui  volu- 
mi nu m  suorum  frontes  maxime  placent  titulique  ?  Apud  desid- 
iosissimos  ergo  videbis  quicquid  orationum  historiarumque  est, 
tecto  tenus  exstructa  loculamenta ;  jam  enim  inter  balnearia  et 
thermas  bibliotlieca  quoque  ut  necessarium  donms  ornanientum 
expolitur.  Ignoscereni  plane,  si  studiorum  nimia  cupidine  ori- 
retur :  nunc  ista  conquisita,  cum  imaginibus  suis  descripta  et 
sacrorum  opera  ingeniorum  in  speciem  et  cultum  parietum  com- 
parantur." —  Seneca,  Be  Tranquillitate,  c.  ix. 

There  are  some  good  hits  here,  which  would  tell  at  the  present 
day.  Seneca  is  reported  to  have  had  a  large  library  ;  it  is  cer 
tain  that  he  possessed  and  fully  enjoyed  enormous  wealth  ;  and 
it  is  amusing  to  find  this  commendation  of  literary  moderation 
following  on  a  well-known  passage  in  praise  of  parsimonious 
living,  and  of  the  good  example  set  by  Diogenes.  Modern 
scepticism  about  the  practical  stoicism  of  the  ancients  is  surely 
brought  to  a  climax  by  a  living  writer,  M.  Fournier,  who  main 
tains  that  the  so-called  tub  of  Diogenes  was  in  reality  a  commo- 


THE  COLLECTOR  AND  THE  SCHOLAR. 

To  every  man  of  our  Saxon  race  endowed  with 
full  health  and  strength,  there  is  committed,  as  if  it 
were  the  price  he  pays  for  these  blessings,  the  cus 
tody  of  a  restless  demon,  for  which  he  is  doomed  to 
find  ceaseless  excitement,  either  in  honest  work,  or 
some  less  profitable  or  more  mischievous  occupation.1 
Countless  have  been  the  projects  devised  by  the  wit 
of  man  to  open  up  for  this  fiend  fields  of  exertion 

dious  little  dwelling  —  neat  but  not  gorgeous.  It  must  be  sup 
posed,  then,  that  he  spoke  of  his  tub  much  as  an  English  coun 
try  gentleman  does  of  his  "  box." 

1  [The  writer  here  falls  into  an  error  which  all  the  more  de 
mands  correction  because  it  is  so  common.  Our  race  is  con 
stantly  spoken  of,  on  this  side  of  the  water  no  less  than  on  the 
other,  as  the  Anglo-Saxon  race.  If  there  ever  was  a  race  entitled 
to  that  ambiguous  name,  it  had  disappeared  before  the  Conquest. 
The  people  whom  William  conquered  were  Englishmen;  and 
they  were  called  Englishmen  and  their  country  was  called  Eng 
land  because  it  was  the  land  of  the  English,  as  France  was  called 
France  because  it  was  the  land  of  the  Franks.  The  conduct  of 
many  of  our  brethren  in  the  old  home  has  caused  most  of  us 
here  to  shrink  from  the  name  of  English  men,  even  those  who 
glory  that  they  were  born  and  bred  in  New  England;  and  our 
pride  of  race  takes  refuge  in  our  so-called  Anglo-Saxonism. 
The  name  American,  so  generally  given  to  us,  and  so  generally 
accepted,  is  most  poor  and  unmeaning.  It  applies  equally,  and 
with  much  more  propriety,  to  the  Esquimaux  and  the  Patago- 
nians.  It  is  as  if  the  Italians  or  the  Swedes  were  to  be  called 
simply  Europeans.  The  people  of  this  country  are  to  all  intents 
and  purposes  as  surely  English  people  as  they  were  when  in  the 
century  1GOO  they  were  called  "American  Englishmen,"  or 
when  in  the  next  century  our  grandfathers  and  great-grand 
fathers  commenced  the  movement  which  ended  in  our  separate 
political  existence  by  claiming,  in  specific  terms,  from  the  British 
Government  their  "rights  as  Englishmen."  The  mixture  of 
foreign  elements  has  been  proportionally  little  greater  here  than 
in  England.  Here  it  has  been  Irish  and  German,  there  Irish 


118  HIS  FUNCTIONS. 

great  enough  for  the  absorption  of  its  tireless  ener 
gies  ;  and  none  of  them  is  more  hopeful  than  the 
great  world  of  books,  if  the  demon  is  docile  enough 

and  Scotch.  In  both  cases,  however,  there  is  an  immediate 
absorption.  In  the  second  generation,  the  Irishman,  the  Scotch 
man,  and  the  German  disappears,  and  in  his  place  is  an  Eng 
lishman. 

The  "  restless  demon  "  of  work  came  over  the  sea  with  the 
race ;  and  that  he  is  more  active  here  than  in  his  original  abode 
(as  all  the  world  says)  is  because  he  is  free  here  from  the  arti 
ficial  restraints  which  there  clog  his  movements  and  thwart  his 
purposes.  It  is  this  hereditary  disposition  of  every  man  to 
work,  and  the  ability  of  every  man  to  work  here  as  he  wishes 
to  work,  that  has  enabled  us  to  bear  and  to  thrive  under  the 
enormous  burdens  of  the  present  war,  which,  though  grown 
threefold  greater  than  they  were  expected  to  be  when  the  polit 
ical  economists  of  Europe,  and  particularly  of  Great  Britain, 
predicted  our  reduction  to  beggary  and  consequent  anarchy, 
have  not  been  able  to  seriously  impede  our  prosperity,  or  even 
our  expenditure  for  foreign  productions.  Wise  politicians  and 
able  editors  abroad,  when  they  make  calculations  in  regard  to 
us,  must  take  into  account  our  good  demon,  and  leave  out  the 
spell  from  which  he  freed  himself  when  he  crossed  the  water. 

—  Singularly  opportune,  just  as  I  am  about  to  send  this  note 
to  press,  the  "  Saturday  Review  "  of  October  4th  arrives,  in  the 
third  article  of  which  there  is  this  characteristic  sentence :  — 
"  The  Americans  in  the  noonday  light  of  history  have  in 
vented  for  themselves  an  imaginary  pedigree  under  the  blun 
dering  nickname  of  the  great  Anglo-Saxon  race."  This  is 
about  as  near  truth  or  courtesy  as  the  "  Saturday  Review  "  can 
get  when  speaking  of  anything  or  any  person  in  this  country, 
except  a  slaveholding  rebel  against  an  unviolated  constitutional 
government.  But,  as  we  have  seen,  the  "  blundering  nickname  " 
was  not  invented  here,  or  specially  for  us,  but  in  England,  and 
for  all  P^nglish  people,  whether  subjects  of  Great  Britain  or  citi 
zens  of  the  United  States.  For  the  latter,  however,  the  "  Satur 
day  Review  "  would  prefer  Mr.  Roebuck's  courteous  and  decor 
ous  designation. —  W.] 


THE  COLLECTOR  AND  THE  SCHOLAR.      H9 

to  be  coaxed  into  it.  Then  will  its  erratic  restless 
ness  be  sobered  by  the  immensity  of  the  sphere  of 
exertion,  and  the  consciousness  that,  however  vehe 
mently  and  however  long  it  may  struggle,  the  re 
sources  set  before  it  will  not  be  exhausted  when  the 
life  to  which  it  is  attached  shall  have  faded  away ; 
and  hence,  instead  of  dreading  the  languor  of  inac 
tion,  it  will  have  to  summon  all  its  resources  of 
promptness  and  activity  to  get  over  any  considerable 
portion  of  the  ground  within  the  short  space  allotted 
to  the  life  of  man. 

That  the  night  cometh  when  no  man  can  work, 
haunts  those  who  have  gone  so  far  in  their  in 
vestigations,  and  draws  their  entire  energies  into 
their  pursuit  with  an  exclusiveness  which  astonishes 
the  rest  of  the  world.  But  the  energies  might  be 
more  unfitly  directed.  Look  back,  for  instance  — 
no  great  distance  back  —  on  the  great  high-priest  of 
our  national  school  of  logic  and  metaphysics,  —  he 
who  gathered  up  its  divers  rays,  and,  helping  them 
with  lioilt  from  all  other  sources  of  human  knowl- 

o 

edge,  concentrated  the  whole  into  one  powerful 
focus.  No  one  could  look  at  the  massive  brow,  the 
large,  full,  lustrous  eyes,  the  firm  compressed  lip, 
without  seeing  that  the  demon  of  energy  was  power 
ful  within  him,  and  had  it  not  found  work  in  the 
conquest  of  all  human  learning,  must  have  sought  it 
elsewhere.  You  see  in  him  the  nature  that  must 
follow  up  all  inquiries,  not  by  languid  solicitation 
but  hot  pursuit.  His  conquests  as  he  goes  are  rapid, 
but  complete.  Summing  up  the  thousands  upon 


120  HIS  FUNCTIONS. 

thousands  of  volumes,  upon  all  matters  of  human 
study  and  in  many  languages,  which  he  has  passed 
through  his  hands,  you  think  he  has  merely  dipped 
into  them  or  skimmed  them,  or  in  some  other  shape 
put  them  to  superficial  use.  You  are  wrong :  he 
has  found  his  way  at  once  to  the  very  heart  of  the 
living  matter  of  each  one  ;  between  it  and  him  there 
are  henceforth  no  secrets.1 

Descending,  however,  from  so  high  a  sphere,  we 

1  How  a  nature  endowed  with  powerful  impulses  like  these 
might  be  led  along  with  them  into  a  totally  different  groove, 
I  am  reminded  by  a  traditionary  anecdote  of  student  life.  A 
couple  of  college  chums  are  under  the  impression  that  their 
motions  are  watched  by  an  inquisitive  tutor,  who  for  the  occa 
sion  may  be  called  Dr.  Fusby.  They  become  both  exceeding 
wroth,  and  the  more  daring  of  the  two  engages  on  the  first 
opportunity  to  "  settle  the  fellow."  They  are  occupied  in 
ardent  colloquy,  whether  on  the  predicates  or  other  matters  it 
imports  not,  when  a  sudden  pause  in  the  conversation  enables 
them  to  be  aware  that  there  is  a  human  being  breathing  close 
on  the  other  side  of  the  "oak."  The  light  is  extinguished,  the 
door  opened,  and  a  terrific  blow  from  a  strong  and  scientifically 
levelled  fist  hurls  the  listener  down-stairs  to  the  next  landing- 
place,  from  which  resting-place  he  hears  thundered  after  him 
for  his  information,  "  If  you  come  back  again,  you  scoundrel, 
I'll  put  you  into  the  hands  of  Dr.  Fusby."  From  that  source, 
however,  no  one  had  much  to  dread  for  some  considerable 
period,  during  which  the  Doctor  was  confined  to  his  bedroom 
by  serious  indisposition.  It  refreshed  the  recollection  of  this 
anecdote,  years  after  I  had  heard  it,  and  many  years  after  the 
date  attributed  to  it,  to  have  seen  a  dignified  scholar  make  what 
appeared  to  me  an  infinitesimally  narrow  escape  from  sharing 
the  fate  of  Dr.  Fusby,  having  indeed  just  escaped  it  by  satis 
factorily  proving  to  a  hasty  philosopher  that  he  was  not  the 
party  guilty  of  keeping  a  certain  copy  of  Occam  on  the  sen 
tences  of  Peter  Lombard  out  of  his  reach. 


THE  COLLECTOR  AND  THE  SCHOLAR.   121 

shall  find  that  the  collector  and  the  scholar  are  so 
closely  connected  with  each  other  that  it  is  difficult 
to  draw  the  line  of  separation  between  them.  As 
dynamic  philosophers  say,  they  act  and  react  on 
each  other.  The  possession  of  certain  books  has 
made  men  acquainted  with  certain  pieces  of  knowl 
edge  which  they  would  not  otherwise  have  acquired. 
It  is,  in  fact,  one  of  the  amiable  weaknesses  of  the 
set,  to  take  a  luxurious  glance  at  a  new  acquisition. 
It  is  an  outcropping  of  what  remains  in  the  man,  of 
the  affection  towards  a  new  toy  that  flourished  in 
the  heart  of  the  boy.  Whether  the  right  reverend 
or  right  honourable  Thomas  has  ever  taken  his  new- 
bought  Baskerville  to  bed  with  him,  as  the  Tommy 
that  was  has  taken  his  humming-top,  is  a  sort  of 
case  which  has  not  actually  come  under  observation 
in  the  course  of  my  own  clinical  inquiries  into  the 
malady  ;  but  I  am  not  prepared  to  state  that  it 
never  occurred,  and  can  attest  many  instances  where 
the  recent  purchase  has  kept  the  owner  from  bed 
far  on  in  the  night.  In  this  incidental  manner  is 
a  general  notion  sometimes  formed  of  the  true  ob 
ject  and  tenor  of  a  book,  which  is  retained  in  the 
mind,  stored  for  use,  and  capable  of  being  refreshed 
and  strengthened  whenever  it  is  wanted.  In  the 
skirmish  for  the  Caxtons,  which  began  the  serious 
work  in  the  great  conflict  of  the  Roxburghe  sale, 
it  was  satisfactory  to  find,  as  I  have  already  stated, 
on  the  authority  of  the  great  historian  of  the  war, 
that  Earl  Spencer,  the  victor,  "  put  each  volume 
under  his  coat,  and  walked  home  with  them  in  all 


122  7775  FUNCTIONS. 

the  flush  of  victory  and  consciousness  of  triumph." 
Ere  next  mornino-  lie  would  know  a  good  deal  more 

O  o 

about  the  contents  of  the  volumes  than  he  did  before. 


((Meaner  anb  Iji0  fjaruest. 


HERE    are    sometimes    agreeable   and 

O 

sometimes  disappointing  surprises  in  en 
countering  the  interiors  of  books.  The 
title-page  is  not  always  a  distinct  inti 
mation  of  what  is  to  follow.  Whoever  dips  into 
the  Novella3  of  Leo,  or  the  Extravagantes,  as  edited 
by  Gothofridus,  will  not  find  either  of  them  to 
contain  matter  of  a  light,  airy,  and  amusing  kind. 
Dire  have  been  the  disappointments  incurred  by 
the  Diversions  of  Purley  —  one  of  the  toughest 
books  in  existence.  It  has  even  cast  a  shade  over 
one  of  our  best  story-books,  The  Diversions  of 
Hollycot,  by  the  late  Mrs.  Johnston.  The  great 
scholar,  Leo  Allatius,  who  broke  his  heart  when 
he  lost  the  special  pen  with  which  lie  wrote  during 
forty  years,  published  a  work  called  Apes  Urbana? 
—  Urban  Bees.  It  is  a  biographical  work,  devoted 

1  In  the  article  in  Black  wood,  the  author,  from  a  vitiated 
reminiscence,  made  the  unpardonable  blunder  of  attributing  this 
touching  trait  of  nature  to  the  noble  purcbaser  of  the  Valderfaer 
Boccaccio.  For  this,  as  not  only  a  mistake,  but  in  some  meas 
ure  an  imputation  on  the  tailor  who  could  have  made  for  his 
lordship  pockets  of  dimensions  so  abnormal,  I  received  due 
castigation  from  an  eminent  practical  man  in  the  book-hunter's 
field. 


THE   GLEANER  AND  HIS  HARVEST.       123 

to  the  great  men  who  flourished  during  the  Pontifi 
cate  of  Urban  VIII.,  whose  family  carried  bees  on 
their  coat-armorial.  The  History  of  New  York, 
by  Diedrich  Knickerbocker,  has  sorely  perplexed 
certain  strong-minded  women,  who  read  nothing 
but  genuine  history.  The  book  which,  in  the 
English  translation,  goes  by  the  name  of  Marmon- 
tel's  Moral  Tales,  has  been  found  to  give  disap 
pointment  to  parents  in  search  of  the  absolutely 
correct  and  improving ;  and  Edgeworth's  Essay 
on  Irish  Bulls  has  been  counted  money  absolutely 
thrown  away  by  eminent  breeders.  There  is  a 
sober-looking  volume,  generally  bound  in  sheep, 
called  MacEwen  on  the  Types  —  a  theological 
book,  in  fact,  treating  of  the  types  of  Christianity 
in  the  old  law.  Concerning  it,  a  friend  once  told 
me  that,  at  an  auction,  he  had  seen  it  vehemently 
competed  for  by  an  acute-looking  citizen  artisan 
and  a  burly  farmer  from  the  hills.  The  latter,  the 
successful  party,  tossed  the  lot  to  the  other,  who 

might  have  it  and  be  d d  to  it,  he  "  thought  it 

was  a  buik  upo'  the  tups,"  a  word  which,  it  may 
be  necessary  to  inform  the  unlearned  reader,  means 
rams  :  but  the  other  competitor  also  declined  the 
lot ;  he  was  a  compositor  or  journeyman  printer, 
and  expected  to  find  the  book  honestly  devoted  to 
those  tools  of  his  trade  of  which  it  professed  to  treat. 
Mr.  Ruskin,  having  formed  the  pleasant  little  origi 
nal  design  of  abolishing  the  difference  between  Po 
pery  and  Protestantism,  through  the  persuasive  in 
fluence  of  his  own  special  eloquence,  set  forth  his 


124  BIS  FUNCTIONS. 

views  upon  the  matter  in  a  book  which  he  termed 
a  treatise  "  on  the  construction  of  sheepfokls."  I 
have  been  informed  that  this  work  had  a  consider 
able  run  among  the  muirland  farmers,  whose  recep 
tion  of  it  was  not  flattering. 

Logic  has  not  succeeded  as  yet  in  discovering  the 
means  of  framing  a  title-page  which  shall  be  ex 
haustive,  as  it  is  termed,  and  constitute  an  infallible 
finger-post  to  the  nature  of  a  book.  From  the  be 
ginning  of  all  literature,  it  may  be  said  that  man 
has  been  continually  struggling  after  this  achieve 
ment,  and  struggling  in  vain  ;  and  it  is  a  humiliat 
ing  fact,  that  the  greatest  adepts,  abandoning  the 
effort  in  despair,  have  taken  refuge  in  some  for 
tuitous  word,  which  has  served  their  purpose  better 
than  the  best  results  of  their  logical  analysis.  The 
book  which  has  been  the  supreme  ruler  of  the  in 
tellect  in  this  kind  of  work  stands  forth  as  an  illus 
trious  example  of  failure.  To  those  writings  of 
Aristotle  which  dealt  with  mind,  his  editing  pupils 
could  give  no  name,  —  therefore  they  called  them 
the  things  after  the  physics  —  the  metaphysics ; 
and  that  fortuitous  title  the  great  arena  of  thought 
to  which  they  refer  still  bears,  despite  of  efforts  to 
supply  an  apter  designation  in  such  words  as  Psy 
chology,  Pneumatology,  and  Transcendentalism. 

Writhing  under  this  nightmare  kind  of  difficulty, 
men  in  later  times  tried  to  achieve  completeness  by 
lengthening  the  title-page ;  but  they  found  that  the 
longer  they  made  it,  the  more  it  wriggled  itself  into 
devious  tracks,  and  the  farther  did  they  depart  from 


THE   GLEANER  AND   HIS  HARVEST.       125 

a  comprehensive  name.  Some  title-pages  in  old 
folios  make  about  half  an  hour's  reading.1  One 
advantage,  however,  was  found  in  these  lengthy 
titles  —  they  afforded  to  controversialists  a  means  of 
condensing  the  pith  of  their  malignity  towards  each 
other,  and  throwing  it,  as  it  were,  right  in  the  face 
of  the  adversary.  It  will  thus  often  happen  that 
the  controversialist  states  his  case  first  in  the  title- 
page  ;  he  then  gives  it  at  greater  length  in  the  in 
troduction  ;  again,  perhaps,  in  a  preface  ;  a  third 
time  in  an  analytical  form,  through  means  of  a  table 
of  contents  ;  after  all  this  skirmishing,  he  brings  up 
his  heavy  columns  in  the  body  of  the  book ;  and  if 
he  be  very  skilful,  he  may  let  fly  a  few  Parthian 
arrows  from  the  index. 

It  is  a  remarkable  thing  that  a  man  should  have 
been  imprisoned,  and  had  his  ears  cut  off,  and  be 
come  one  of  the  chief  causes  of  our  great  civil  wars, 
all  along  of  an  unfortunate  word  or  two  in  the  last 

1  A  good  modern  specimen  of  a  lengthy  title-page  may  be 
found  in  one  of  the  books  appropriate  to  the  matter  in  hand,  by 
the  diligent  French  bibliographer  Peignot :  — 

"  DICTIONNAIRE  RAisoNNE  BE  BiBLiOLOGiE  :  contenant  — 
Imo,  L'explication  des  principaux  termes  relatifs  a  la  biblio 
graphic,  a  1'art  typographique,  a  la  diplomatique,  aux  langues, 
aux  archives,  aux  manuscrits,  aux  medailles,  aux  antiquites, 
&c. ;  2do,  Des  notices  historiques  de'taille'es  sur  les  principals 
bibliotheques  ancicnnes  et  modernes  ;  sur  les  differentes  sectes 
philosophiques  ;  sur  les  plus  celebres  imprimeurs,  avec  un  indi 
cation  des  meilleures  editions  sorties  de  leurs  presses ;  et  sur  les 
bibliographes,  avec  la  liste  de  leurs  ouvrages ;  3tio,  enfin,  L'ex- 
position  des  differentes  systemes  biliographiques,  &c.,  —  ouvrage 
utile  aux  bibliothecaires,  archivistes,  imprimeurs,  &c."  Paris, 
1802. 


HIS  FUNCTIONS. 

page  of  a  book  containing  more  than  a  thousand. 
It  was  as  far  down  in  his  very  index  as  W  that  the 
great  offence  in  Prynne's  Histrio  Mastyx  was  found, 
under  the  head  "  Women  actors."  The  words  which 
follow  are  rather  unquotable  in  this  nineteenth  cen 
tury  ;  but  it  was  a  very  odd  compliment  to  Queen 
Henrietta  Maria  to  presume  that  these  words  must 
refer  to  her  —  something  like  Hugo's  sarcasm  that, 
when  the  Parisian  police  overhear  any  one  use  the 
terms  "  ruffian  "  and  "  scoundrel,"  they  say,  "  You 
must  be  speaking  of  the  Emperor."  The  Histrio 
Mastyx  was,  in  fact,  so  big  and  so  complex  a  thicket 
of  confusion,  that  it  had  been  licensed  without  ex 
amination  by  the  licenser,  who  perhaps  trusted  that 
the  world  would  have  as  little  inclination  to  peruse 
it  as  he  had.  The  calamitous  discovery  of  the  sting 
in  the  tail  must  surely  have  been  made  by  a  Hebrew 
or  an  Oriental  student,  who  mechanically  looked  for 
the  commencement  of  the  Histrio  Mastyx  where  he 
would  have  looked  for  that  of  a  Hebrew  Bible. 
Successive  licensers  had  given  the  work  a  sort  of 
go-by,  but,  reversing  the  order  of  the  sibylline  books, 
it  became  always  larger  and  larger,  until  it  found  a 
licenser  who,  with  the  notion  that  he  "  must  put  a 
stop  to  this,"  passed  it  without  examination.  It 
got  a  good  deal  of  reading  immediately  afterwards, 
especially  from  Attorney-General  Noy,  who  asked 
the  Star-Chamber  what  it  had  to  do  with  the  im 
morality  of  stage-plays  to  exclaim  that  church-music 
is  not  the  noise  of  men,  but  rather  "  a  bleating  of 
brute  beasts — choristers  bellow  the  tenor  as  it  were 


THE  GLEANER  AND  HIS  HARVEST.        127 

oxen,  bark  a  counterpoint  as  a  kennel  of  dogs,  roar 
out  a  treble  like  a  set  of  bulls,  grunt  out  a  bass  as 
it  were  a  number  of  hogs."  But  Mr.  Attorney  took 
surely  a  more  nice  distinction  when  he  made  a 
charge  against  the  author  in  these  terms  :  "  All 
stage-players  he  terms  them  rogues  :  in  this  he  doth 
falsify  the  very  Act  of  Parliament ;  for  unless  they 
go  abroad,  they  are  not  rogues." 

In  the  very  difficulties  in  the  way  of  framing  a 
conclusive  and  exhaustive  title,  there  is  a  principle 
of  compensation.  It  clears  literature  of  walls  and 
hedgerows,  and  makes  it  a  sort  of  free  forest.  To 
the  desultory  reader,  not  following  up  any  special 
inquiry,  there  are  delights  in  store  in  a  devious  rum 
mage  through  miscellaneous  volumes,  as  there  are  to 
the  lovers  of  adventure  and  the  picturesque  in  any 
district  of  country  not  desecrated  by  the  tourist's 
guide-books.  Many  readers  will  remember  the 
pleasant  little  narrative  appended  to  Croker's  edi 
tion  of  Boswell,  of  Johnson's  talk  at  Cambridge 
with  that  extensive  book-hunter,  Dr.  Richard  Far 
mer,  who  boasted  of  the  possession  of  "plenty  of  all 
such  reading  as  was  never  read,"  and  scandalized 
his  visitor  by  quoting  from  Markham's  Book  of 
Armorie  a  passage  applying  the  technicalities  of 
heraldry  and  genealogy  to  the  most  sacred  mystery 
of  Christianity.  One  who  has  not  tried  it,  may 
form  an  estimate  of  this  kind  of  pursuit  from 
Charles  Lamb's  Specimens  from  the  Writings  of 
Fuller.  No  doubt,  as  thus  transplanted,  these  have 
not  the  same  fresh  relish  which  they  have  for  the 


128  SIS  FUNCTIONS. 

wanderer  who  finds  them  in  their  own  native 
wilderness ;  but,  like  the  specimens  in  a  conserva 
tory  or  a  museum,  they  are  examples  of  what  may 
be  found  in  the  place  they  have  come  from.  I  am 
here  tempted  to  relieve  this  desultory  prattle  by 
offering  to  the  reader  a  passage  or  two  from  some 
old  author,  not  exactly  in  the  regular  beat  of  our 
"  English  classics ;  "  and  I  shall  take  Sir  Thomas 
Browne.  Whether  the  reader  is  already  acquainted 
with  them  or  not,  I  am  sure  that  he  will  enjoy  the 
beauty  of  the  thoughts  and  the  mellowed  sweetness 
of  the  style.  In  the  first,  the  author  relieves  his 
mind  about  his  fellow-Christians  of  the  Romish 
persuasion. 

The  ^Esthetics  of  Toleration. 

"  We  have  reformed  from  them,  not  against 
them  ;  for,  omitting  those  improprieties  and  terms 
of  scurrility  betwixt  us,  which  only  difference  our 
affections  and  not  our  cause,  there  is  between  us 
one  common  name  and  appellation,  one  faith  and 
necessary  body  of  principles  common  to  us  both  ; 
and  therefore  I  am  not  scrupulous  to  converse  and 
live  with  them,  to  enter  their  churches  in  defect  of 
ours,  and  either  pray  with  them  or  for  them.  I 
could  never  perceive  any  rational  consequence  from 
those  many  texts  which  prohibit  the  children  of 
Israel  to  pollute  themselves  with  the  temples  of  the 
heathens  ;  we  being  all  Christians,  and  not  divided 
by  such  detested  impieties  as  might  profane  our 
prayers,  or  the  place  wherein  we  make  them  ;  or 


THE  GLEANER  AND  HIS  HARVEST.          129 

that  a  resolved  conscience  may  not  adore  her  Crea 
tor  anywhere,  especially  in  places  devoted  to  his 
service  ;  where,  if  their  devotions  offend  him,  mine 
may  please  him,  if  theirs  profane  it,  mine  may  hal 
low  it.  Holy  water  and  crucifix  (dangerous  to 
the  common  people)  deceive  not  my  judgment,  nor 
abuse  my  devotion  at  all.  I  am,  I  confess,  natural 
ly  inclined  to  that  which  misguided  zeal  terms  su 
perstition  :  my  common  conversation  I  do  acknowl 
edge  austere,  my  behaviour  full  of  rigour,  sometimes 
not  without  morosity ;  yet  at  my  devotion  I  love  to 
use  the  civility  of  my  knee,  my  hat,  and  hand, 
with  all  those  outward  and  sensible  motions  which 
may  express  or  promote  my  invisible  devotion.  I 
should  violate  my  own  arm  rather  than  a  church, 
nor  willingly  deface  the  name  of  saint  or  martyr. 
At  the  sight  of  a  cross  or  crucifix  I  can  dispense 
with  my  hat,  but  scarce  with  the  thought  or  mem 
ory  of  my  Saviour.  I  cannot  laugh  at,  but  rather 
pity  the  fruitless  journeys  of  pilgrims,  or  contemn 
the  miserable  condition  of  friars  ;  for  though  mis 
placed  in  circumstances,  there  is  something  in  it  of 
devotion.  I  could  never  hear  the  Ave  Maria  bell 
without  an  elevation  ;  or  think  it  a  sufficient  war 
rant,  because  they  erred  in  one  circumstance,  for 
me  to  err  in  all  —  that  is,  in  silence  and  dumb  con 
tempt.  Whilst,  therefore,  they  directed  their  de 
votions  to  her,  I  offered  mine  to  God,  and  rectified 
the  errors  of  their  prayers  by  rightly  ordering  mine 
own.  At  a  solemn  procession  I  have  wept  abun 
dantly,  while  my  consorts,  blind  with  opposition 


130  HIS  FUNCTIONS. 

and  prejudice,  have  fallen  into  an  excess  of  scorn 
and  laughter.  There  are,  questionless,  both  in 
Greek,  Roman,  and  African  churches,  solemnities 
and  ceremonies  whereof  the  wiser  zealots  do  make 
a  Christian  use ;  and  stand  condemned  by  us,  not 
as  evil  in  themselves,  but  as  allurements  and  baits 
of  superstition  to  those  vulgar  heads  that  look 
asquint  on  the  face  of  truth,  and  those  unstable 
judgments  that  cannot  consist  in  the  narrow  point 
and  center  of  virtue,  without  a  reel  or  stagger  to 
the  circumference." 

Disputation. 

"  I  could  never  divide  myself  from  any  man  upon 
the  difference  of  an  opinion,  or  be  angry  with  his 
judgment  for  not  agreeing  with  me  in  that  from 
which,  perhaps,  within  a  few  days  I  should  dissent 
myself.  I  have  no  genius  to  disputes  in  religion, 
and  have  often  thought  it  wisdom  to  decline  them, 
especially  upon  a  disadvantage,  or  when  the  cause 
of  truth  might  suffer  in  the  weakness  of  my  patron 
age.  Where  we  desire  to  be  informed,  'tis  good  to 
contest  with  men  above  ourselves  ;  but  to  confirm 
and  establish  our  opinions,  'tis  best  to  argue  with 
judgments  below  our  own,  that  the  frequent  spoils 
and  victories  over  their  reasons  may  settle  in  our 
selves  an  esteem  and  confirmed  opinion  of  our  own. 
Every  man  is  not  a  proper  champion  for  truth, 
—  not  fit  to  take  up  the  gauntlet  in  the  cause  of 
verity.  Many,  from  the  ignorance  of  these  max 
ims,  and  an  inconsiderate  zeal  unto  truth,  have 


THE  GLEANER  AND  HIS  HARVEST. 

too  rashly  charged  the  troops  of  error,  and  remain 
as  trophies  unto  the  enemies  of  truth.  A  man  may 
be  in  as  just  possession  of  truth  as  of  a  city,  and 
yet  be  forced  to  surrender  ;  'tis  therefore  far  better 
to  enjoy  her  with  peace  than  to  hazard  her  on  a 
battle.  If,  therefore,  there  arise  any  doubts  in  my 
way,  I  do  forget  them,  or  at  least  defer  them,  till 
my  better-settled  judgment  and  more  manly  reason 
be  able  to  resolve  them  ;  for  I  perceive  every  man's- 
own  reason  is  his  best  CEdipus,  and  will,  upon  a 
reasonable  truce,  find  a  way  to  loose  those  bonds 
wherewith  the  subtilties  of  error  have  enchained 
our  more  flexible  and  tender  judgments." 

The  Harmony  of  Nature. 

"  '  Natura  nihil  agit  frustra,'  is  the  only  indispu 
table  axiom  in  philosophy.  There  are  no  grotesk  in 
nature,  nor  anything  framed  to  fill  up  empty  can 
tons  and  unnecessary  spaces.  In  the  most  imper 
fect  creatures,  and  such  as  were  not  preserved  in 
the  ark  —  but,  having  their  seeds  and  principles  in 
the  womb  of  nature,  are  everywhere  where  the 
power  of  the  sun  is  —  in  these  is  the  wisdom  of  his 
hand  discovered  ;  out  of  this  rank  Solomon  chose 
the  object  of  his  admiration.  Indeed  what  reason 
may  not  go  to  school  to  the  wisdom  of  bees,  ants, 
and  spiders  ?  What  wise  hand  teacheth  them  to 
do  what  reason  cannot  teach  us  ?  Ruder  heads 
stand  amazed  at  those  prodigious  pieces  of  nature, 
whales,  elephants,  dromedaries  and  camels,  —  these, 
I  confess,  are  the  colossus  and  majestick  pieces  of 


132  iris  FUNCTIONS. 

her  hand ;  but  in  these  narrow  engines  there  are 
more  curious  mathematieks,  and  the  civility  of 
these  little  citizens  more  neatly  sets  forth  the  wis 
dom  of  their  maker.  Who  admires  Regiomontanus 
his  fly  beyond  his  eagle,  or  wonders  not  more  at 
the  operation  of  two  souls  in  those  little  bodies, 
than  but  one  in  the  trunk  of  a  cedar  ?  I  could 
never  content  my  contemplation  with  those  general 
pieces  of  wonder,  the  flux  and  reflux  of  the  sea, 
the  increase  of  the  Nile,  the  conversion  of  the 
needle  to  the  north  ;  and  have  studied  to  match 
.and  parallel  those  in  the  more  obvious  and  neglect 
ed  pieces  of  nature,  which  without  further  travel 
I  can  do  in  the  cosmography  of  myself.  We  carry 
with  us  the  wonders  we  seek  without  us :  there  is 
all  Africa  and  her  prodigies  in  us.  We  are  that 
bold  and  adventurous  piece  of  nature  which  he  that 
studies  wisely  learns  in  a  compendium,  and  which 
•others  labour  at  in  a  divided  piece  and  endless 
volume. 

"  Thus  there  are  two  books  from  whence  I  col 
lect  my  divinity ;  besides  that  written  one  of  God, 
another  of  his  servant  nature,  that  universal  and 
publick  manuscript,  that  lies  expended  unto  the  eyes 
of  all.  Those  that  never  saw  him  in  the  one,  have 
discovered  him  in  the  other.  This  was  the  scrip 
ture  and  theology  of  the  heathens.  The  natural 
motion  of  the  sun  made  them  more  admire  him  than 
its  supernatural  station  did  the  children  of  Israel ; 
the  ordinary  effect  of  nature  wrought  more  admi 
ration  in  them  than  in  the  other  all  his  miracles. 


THE   GLEANER  AND  HIS  HARVEST.       133 

Surely  the  heathens  knew  better  how  to  join  and 
read  these  mystical  letters  than  we  Christians,  who 
cast  a  more  careless  eye  on  these  common  hiero- 
glyphicks,  and  disdain  to  suck  divinity  from  the 
flowers  of  nature." 

TJie  Justification  of  Martyrdom. 

"  Now  as  all  that  die  in  war  are  not  termed 
soldiers,  so  neither  can  I  properly  term  all  those 
that  suffer  in  matters  of  religion  martyrs.  The 
Council  of  Constance  condemns  John  Huss  for  an 
heretick,  the  stories  of  his  own  party  stile  him  a 
martyr  :  he  must  needs  offend  the  divinity  of  both, 
who  says  he  was  neither  the  one  nor  the  other. 
There  are  many,  questionless,  canonised  on  earth, 
who  shall  never  be  saints  in  heaven  ;  and  have 
their  names  in  histories  and  martyrologies,  who, 
in  the  eyes  of  God  are  not  so  perfect  martyrs  as 
was  that  wise  heathen,  Socrates,  who  suffered  on 
a  fundamental  point  of  religion,  the  unity  of  God. 
I  have  often  pitied  the  miserable  bishop  who  suf 
fered  in  the  cause  of  antipodes,  yet  cannot  chuse 
but  accuse  him  of  as  much  madness,  for  exposing 
his  life  on  such  a  trifle,  as  those  of  ignorance  and 
folly  who  condemned  him.  I  think  my  conscience 
would  not  give  me  the  lie,  if  I  say  there  are  not 
many  extant  who,  in  a  noble  way,  fear  the  face  of 
death  less  than  myself;  yet,  from  the  moral  duty 
I  owe  to  the  commandment  of  God,  and  the  natural 
respects  that  I  tender  unto  the  conservation  of  my 
essence  and  being,  I  would  not  perish  upon  a  cere- 


134  BIS  FUNCTIONS. 

mony,  politick  points,  or  inclifferency ;  nor  is  my 
belief  of  that  (intractable  temper  as  not  to  bow  at 
their  obstacles,  or  connive  at  matters  wherein  there 
are  not  manifest  impieties.  The  leaven,  therefore, 
and  ferment  of  all,  not  only  civil  but  religious  ac 
tions,  is  wisdom  ;  without  which,  to  commit  our 
selves  to  the  flames  is  homicide,  and  (I  fear)  but 
to  pass  through  one  fire  into  another."  1 

Ashes  of  the    Unknown  Dead. 

"  Time,  which  antiquates  antiquities,  and  hath  an 
art  to  make  dust  of  all  things,  hath  yet  spared  these 
minor  monuments.  In  vain  we  hope  to  be  known 
by  open  and  visible  conservatories,  when  to  be  un 
known  was  the  means  of  their  continuation,  and 
obscurity  their  protection.  If  they  died  by  violent 
hands,  and  were  thrust  into  their  urns,  these  bones 
become  considerable ;  and  some  old  philosophers 
would  honour  them,  whose  souls  they  conceived 
most  pure  which  were  thus  snatched  from  their 
bodies,  and  to  retain  a  stronger  propension  unto 
them  ;  whereas  they  weariedly  left  a  languishing 
corpse,  and  with  faint  desires  of  reunion,  if  they 
fell  by  long  and  aged  decay.  Yet,  wrapt  up  in  the 
bundle  of  time,  they  fall  into  indistinction,  and 

make  but  one  blot  with  infants What 

song  the  Syrens  sang,  or  what  name  Achilles  as 
sumed  when  he  hid  himself  among  women,  though 
puzzling  questions,  are  not  beyond  all  conjecture. 
What  time  the  persons  of  these  assuaries  entered 
1  From  the  Rcligio  Medici. 


THE   GLEANER  AND  HIS  HARVEST.        135 

the  famous  nations  of  the  dead,  and  slept  with 
princes  and  counsellors,  might  admit  a  wide  solu 
tion.  But  who  were  the  proprietors  of  these  bones, 
or  what  bodies  these  ashes  made  up,  were  a  question 
above  antiquarism  —  not  to  be  resolved  by  men,  nor 
easily,  perhaps,  by  spirits,  except  we  consult  the 
provincial  guardians  or  tutelary  observators.  Had 
they  made  as  good  provision  for  their  names  as  they 
have  done  for  their  reliques,  they  had  not  so  grossly 
erred  in  the  art  of  perpetuation.  But  to  subsist  in 
bones,  and  be  but  pyramidally  extant,  is  a  fallacy 
in  duration.  Vain  ashes  !  which,  in  the  oblivion  of 
names,  persons,  times,  and  sexes,  have  found  unto 
themselves  a  fruitless  continuation,  and  only  arise 
unto  late  posterity  as  emblems  of  mortal  vanities, 
antidotes  against  pride,  vainglory,  and  madding 


But  there  are  passages  worth  finding  in  books 
less  promising  than  the  works  of  Browne  or  Fuller. 
Those  who  potter  in  libraries,  especially  if  they 
have  courage  to  meddle  with  big  volumes,  some 
times  find  curious  things  —  for  all  gems  are  not 
collected  in  caskets.  In  searching  through  the 
solid  pages  of  Hatsell's  Precedents  in  Parliament 
for  something  one  doesn't  find,  it  is  some  consola 
tion  to  alight  on  such  a  precedent  as  the  following, 
set  forth  as  likely  to  throw  li«;ht  on  the  mysterious 

«/  O  t/ 

process    called   "  naming  a  member."      "  A    story 

used  to  be  told  of  Mr.  Onslow,  which  those  who 

1  From  the  Hydriotaphia. 


136  nis  FUNCTIONS. 

ridiculed  his  strict  observance  of  forms  were  fond 
of  repeating,  that  as  he  often,  upon  a  member's 
not  attending  to  him,  but  persisting  in  any  disorder, 
threatened  to  name  him  — '  Sir,  sir,  I  must  name 
you '  —  on  being  asked  what  would  be  the  con 
sequence  of  putting  that  threat  in  execution  and 
naming  a  member,  he  answered,  '  The  Lord  in 
heaven  knows.' ' 

In  the  perusal  of  a  very  solid  book  on  the  progress 
of  the  ecclesiastical  differences  of  Ireland,  written 
by  a  native  of  that  country,  after  a  good  deal  of 
tedious  and  vexatious  matter,  the  reader's  compla 
cency  is  restored  by  an  artless  statement  how  an 
eminent  person  "abandoned  the  errors  of  the  Church 
of  Home,  and  adopted  those  of  the  Church  of  Eng 
land." 

So  also  a  note  I  have  preserved  of  a  brief  passage 
descriptive  of  the  happy  conclusion  of  a  duel  runs 
thus  :  — 

"  The  one  party  received  a  slight  wound  in  the 
breast;  the  other  fired  in  the  air  —  and  so  the  mat 
ter  terminated." 

1  This  passage  has  been  quoted  and  read  by  many  people 
quite  unconscious  of  the  arrant  bull  it  contains.  There  could 
be  no  better  testimony  to  its  being  endowed  with  the  subtle 
spirit  of  the  genuine  article.  Irish  bulls,  as  Burke  said  of  con 
stitutions,  "are  not  made  —  they  grow,"  and  that  only  in  their 
own  native  soil.  Those  manufactured  for  the  stage  and  the 
anecdote-books  betray  their  artificial  origin  in  their  breadth  and 
obviousness.  The  real  bull  carries  one  with  it  at  first  by  an  im 
perceptible  confusion  and  misplacement  of  ideas  in  the  mind 
where  it  has  arisen,  and  it  is  not  until  you  reason  back  that  you 
see  it.  Horace  Walpole  used  to  say  that  the  best  of  all  bulls, 


THE   GLEANER  AND  HIS  HARVEST.       137 

Professional  law-books  and  reports  are  not  gen 
erally  esteemed  as  light  reading,  yet  something  may 
be  made  even  of  them  at  a  pinch.  Menage  wrote  a 
book  upon  the  amenities  of  the  civil  law,  which  does 
anything  but  fulfil  its  promise.  There  are  many 
much  better  to  be  got  in  the  most  unlikely  corners ; 
as,  where  a  great  authority  on  copyright  begins  a 
narrative  of  a  case  in  point  by  saying,  "  One  Moore 
had  written  a  book  which  he  called  Irish  Melodies ; " 
and  again,  in  an  action  of  trespass  on  the  case,  "  The 
plaintiff  stated  in  his  declaration  that  he  was  the 
true  and  only  proprietor  of  the  copyright  of  a  book 
of  poems  entitled  The  Seasons,  by  James  Thom 
son."  I  cannot  lay  hands  at  this  moment  on  the 
index  which  refers  to  Mr.  Justice  Best  —  he  was 
the  man,  as  far  as  memory  serves,  but  never  mind. 

from  its  thorough  and  grotesque  confusion  of  identity,  was  that 
of  the  man  who  complained  of  having  been  "  changed  at  nurse ;  " 
and  perhaps  he  is  right.  An  Irishman,  and  he  only,  can  handle 
this  confusion  of  ideas  so  as  to  make  it  a  more  powerful  instru 
ment  of  repartee  than  the  logic  of  another  man  :  take,  for  in 
stance,  the  beggar  who,  when  imploring  a  dignified  clergyman 
for  charity,  was  charged  not  to  take  the  sacred  name  in  vain,  and 
answered,  "  Is  it  in  vain,  then  ?  and  whose  fault  is  that  1  "  I 
have  doubts  whether  the  saying  attributed  to  Sir  Boyle  Roche 
about  being  in  two  places  at  once  "like  a  bird,"  is  the  genuine 
article.  I  happened  to  discover  that  it  is  of  earlier  date  than 
Sir  Boyle's  day,  having  found,  when  rummaging  in  an  old  house 
among  some  Jacobite  manuscripts,  one  from  Robertson  of 
Strowan,  the  warrior  poet,  in  which  he  says  about  two  con 
tradictory  military  instructions,  "  It  seems  a  difficult  point  for 
me  to  put  both  orders  in  execution,  unless,  as  the  man  said,  I 
can  be  in  two  places  at  once,  like  a  bird."  A  few  copies  of  these 
letters  were  printed  for  the  use  of  the  Abbotsford  Club.  This 
letter  of  Strowan's  occurs  in  p.  92. 


138  nis  FUNCTIONS. 

A  searcher  after  something  or  other,  runnino-  his 

O  O 

eye  down  the  index  through  letter  B,  arrived  at 
the  reference  "  Best  —  Mr.  Justice  —  his  great 
mind."  Desiring  to  be  better  acquainted  with  the 
particulars  of  this  assertion,  he  turned  up  the  page 
referred  to,  and  there  found,  to  his  entire  satisfac 
tion,  "  Mr.  Justice  Best  said  he  had  a  great  mind 
to  commit  the  witness  for  prevarication." 

The  following  case  is  curiously  suggestive  of  the 
state  of  the  country  round  London  in  the  days  when 
much  business  was  done  on  the  road: — A  bill  in 
the  Exchequer  was  brought  by  Everett  against  a 
certain  Williams,  setting  forth  that  the  complainant 
was  skilled  in  dealing  in  certain  commodities,  "  such 
as  plate,  rings,  watches,  &c.,"  and  that  the  defend 
ant  desired  to  enter  into  partnership  with  him. 
They  entered  into  partnership  accordingly,  and  it 
was  agreed  that  they  should  provide  the  necessary 
plant  for  the  business  of  the  firm  —  such  as  horses, 
saddles,  bridles,  &c.  (pistols  not  mentioned)  —  and 
should  participate  in  the  expenses  of  the  road.  The 
declaration  then  proceeds,  "  And  your  orator  and 
the  said  Joseph  Williams  proceeded  jointly  with 
good  success  in  the  said  business  on  Hounslow 
Heath,  where  they  dealt  with  a  gentleman  for  a 
gold  watch  ;  and  afterwards  the  said  Joseph  Wil 
liams  told  your  orator  that  Finchley,  in  the  county 
of  Middlesex,  was  a  good  and  convenient  place  to 
deal  in,  and  that  commodities  were  very  plenty  at 
Finchley  aforesaid,  and  it  would  be  almost  all  clear 
gain  to  them  ;  that  they  went  accordingly,  and  dealt 


THE    GLEANER  AND  HIS  HARVEST.        139 

with  several  gentlemen  for  divers  watches,  rings, 
swords,  canes,  hats,  cloaks,  horses,  bridles,  saddles, 
and  other  things  ;  that  about  a  month  afterwards 
the  said  Joseph  Williams  informed  your  orator  that 
there  was  a  gentleman  at  Blacklieatli  who  had  a 
good  horse,  saddle,  bridle,  watch,  sword,  cane,  and 
other  things  to  dispose  of,  which,  he  believed,  might 
be  had  for  little  or  no  money  ;  that  they  accordingly 
went,  and  met  with  the  said  gentleman,  and,  after 
some  small  discourse,  they  dealt  for  the  said  horse, 
&c.  That  your  orator  and  the  said  Joseph  Wil 
liams  continued  their  joint  dealings  together  in 
several  places  —  viz.,  at  Bagshot,  in  Surrey;  Salis 
bury,  in  Wiltshire  ;  Hampstead,  in  Middlesex  ;  and 
elsewhere,  to  the  amount  of  £2000  and  upwards."1 

Here  follows  a  brief  extract  from  a  law  paper, 
for  the  full  understanding  of  which  it  has  to  be  kept 
in  view  that  the  pleader,  being  an  officer  of  the 
law,  who  has  been  prevented  from  executing  his 
warrant  by  threats,  requires,  as  a  matter  of  form, 
to  swear  that  he  was  really  afraid  that  the  threats 
would  be  carried  into  execution. 

"  Farther  depones,  that  the  said  A.  B.  said  that 
if  deponent  did  not  immediately  take  himself  off 
he  would  pitch  him  (the  deponent)  down  stairs  — 
which  the  deponent  verily  believes  he  would  have 
done. 

"  Farther  depones,  that,  time  and  place  aforesaid, 

1  This  case  has  been  often  referred  to  in  law-books,  but  I  have 
never  met  with  so  full  a  statement  of  the  contents  of  the  dec 
laration  as  in  the  Retrospective  Review  (vol.  v.  p.  81). 


140  SIS  FUNCTIONS. 

the  said  A.  B.  said  to  deponent,  '  If  you  come  an 
other  step  nearer  I'll  kick  you  to  hell'-  — which  the 
deponent  verily  believes  he  would  have  done."  l 

I  know  not  whether  "  lay  gents,"  as  the  English 
bar  used  to  term  that  portion  of  mankind  who  had 
not  been  called  to  itself,2  can  feel  any  pleasure  in 
wandering  over  the  case-books,  and  picking  up  the 
funny  technicalities  scattered  over  them  ;  but  I  can 
attest  from  experience  that,  to  a  person  trained  in 
one  set  of  technicalities,  the  pottering  about  among 
those  of  a  different  parish  is  exceedingly  exhilarat 
ing.  When  one  has  been  at  work  among  interlo 
cutors,  suspensions,  tacks,  wadsets,  multiplepoind- 
ings,  adjudications  in  implement,  assignations,  in- 
feftments,  homologations,  charges  of  horning,  quad- 
riennium  utiles,  vicious  intromissions,  decrees  of 
putting  to  silence,  conjoint  actions  of  declarator 
and  reduction-improbation  —  the  brain,  being  satu- 

1  It  is  curious  to  observe  how  bitter  a  prejudice  Themis  has 
against  her  own  humbler  ministers.     Most  of  the  bitterest  legal 
jokes  are  at  the  expense  of  the  class  who  have  to  carry  the  law 
into  effect.     Take,  for  instance,  the  case  of  the  bailiff  who  had 
been  compelled  to  swallow  a  writ,  and,  rushing  into  Lord  Nor- 
bury's  court  to  proclaim  the  indignity  done  to  justice  in  his  per 
son,  was  met  by  the  expression  of  a  hope  that  the  writ  was  "  not 
returnable  in  this  court." 

2  [Do  members  of  the  English  bar  call  any  people  "  gents  "  ? 
Do  those  solemn  benchers,  those  punctilious  Q.  C.'s,  those  fear 
fully  and  wonderfully  wigged  judges,  say  "  gents  "  ?     We  who 
have  not  had  the  advantage  of  personal  observation,  supposed 
"  gent "  to  be  fitly  given  up  to  the  use  of  those  execrable  ani 
mals  who  are  the  triumphs  of  John  Leech's  pencil,  and  the 
butts  of  his  gentlemen,  — in  short,  the  Tittlebat  Titmice  of  the 
English  part  of  the  British  nation.  —  W.J 


THE   GLEANER  AND  HIS  HARVEST.       141 

rated  with  these  and  their  kindred,  becomes  re 
freshed  by  crossing  the  border  of  legal  nomencla 
ture,  and  getting  among  common  recoveries,  de 
murrers,  quare  impedits,  tails-male,  tails-female, 
docked  tails,  latitats,  avowrys,  nihil  dicits,  cestui 
que  trusts,  estoppels,  essoigns,  darrein  presentments, 
emparlances,  mandamuses,  qui  tains,  capias  ad  faci- 
endums  or  ad  withernam,  and  so  forth.  After  vexa 
tious  interlocutors  in  which  the  Lord  Ordinary  has 
refused  interim  interdict,  but  passed  the  bill  to  try 
the  question,  reserving  expenses  ;  or  has  repelled 
the  dilatory  defences,  and  ordered  the  case  to  the 
roll  for  debate  on  the  peremptory  defences  ;  or  has 
taken  to  avizandum  ;  or  has  ordered  re-revised  con- 
descendence  and  answers  on  the  conjoint  probation; 
or  has  sisted  diligence  till  caution  be  found  judicio 
sisti ;  or  has  done  nearly  all  these  things  together 
in  one  breath,  —  it  is  like  the  consolation  derived 
from  meeting  a  companion  in  adversity,  to  find  that 
at  Westminster  Hall,  "  In  fermedon  the  tenant 
having  demanded  a  view  after  a  general  imparlance, 
the  demandant  issued  a  writ  of  petit  cape  —  held 
irregular." 

Also,  "  If,  after  nulla  bona  returned,  a  testatum 
be  entered  upon  the  roll,  quod  devastavit,  a  writ  of 
inquiry  shall  be  directed  to  the  sheriff,  and  if  by 
inquisition  the  devastavit  be  found  and  returned, 
there  shall  be  a  scire  facias  quare  executio  non  de 
propriis  bonis,  and  if  upon  that  the  sheriff  returns 
scire  feci,  the  executor  or  administrator  may  appear 
and  traverse  the  inquisition." 


142  nis  FUNCTIONS. 

Again,  "  If  the  record  of  Nisi  prius  be  a  die 
Sancti  Trinitatis  in  tres  Septimanas  nisi  a  27  June, 
prius  venerit,  which  is  the  day  after  the  day  in 
Bank,  which  was  mistaken  for  a  die  Sancti  Michae- 
lis,  it  shall  not  be  amended." 

It  is  interesting  to  observe,  that  at  one  end  of  the 
island  a  panel  means  twelve  perplexed  agriculturists, 
who,  after  having  taken  an  oath  to  act  according  to 
their  consciences,  are  starved  till  they  are  of  one 
mind  on  some  complicated  question  ;  while,  at  the 
other  end,  the  same  term  applies  to  the  criminal  on 
whose  conduct  they  are  going  to  give  their  verdict. 
It  would  be  difficult  to  decide  which  is  the  more 
happy  application  ;  but  it  must  be  admitted  that  we 
are  a  great  way  behind  the  South  in  our  power  of 
selecting  a  nomenclature  immeasurably  distant  in 
meaning  from  the  thing  signified.  We  speak  of  a 
bond  instead  of  a  mortgage,  and  we  adjudge  where 
we  ought  to  foreclose.  We  have  no  such  thing  as 
chattels,  either  personal  or  real.1  If  you  want  to 

1  A  late  venerable  practitioner  in  a  humble  department  of  the 
law,  who  wanted  to  write  a  book,  and  was  recommended  to  try 
his  hand  at  a  translation  of  Latin  law-maxims  as  a  thing  much 
wanted,  was  considerably  puzzled  with  the  maxim,  "  Catella 
realis  non  potest  legari ; "  nor  was  he  quite  relieved  when  he 
turned  up  his  Ainsworth  and  found  that  catella  means  "a  little 
puppy."  There  was  nothing  for  it,  however,  but  obedience,  so 
that  he  had  to  give  currency  to  the  remarkable  principle  of  law, 
that  "  a  genuine  little  whelp  cannot  be  left  in  legacy."  He  also 
translated  "  messis  sequitur  sementem,"  with  a  fine  simplicity, 
into  "the  harvest  follows  the  seed-time;  "  and  "actor  sequitur 
forum  rei,"  he  made  "  the  agent  must  be  in  court  when  the  case 
is  going  on."  Copies  of  the  book  containing  these  gems  are  ex- 


THE  GLEANER  AND  HIS  HARVEST.        143 

know  the  English  law  of  book- debts,  you  will 
have  to  look  for  it  under  the  head  of  Assumpsit 
in  a  treatise  on  Nisi  Prius ;  while  a  lawyer  of 
Scotland  would  unblushingly  use  the  word  itself, 
and  put  it  in  his  index.  So,  too,  our  bailments 
are  merely  spoken  of  as  bills,  notes,  or  whatever 
a  merchant  might  call  them.  Our  garnishee  is 
merely  a  common  debtor.  Baron  and  feme  we 
call  husband  and  wife,  and  coverture  we  term 
marriage.1 

Still,  for  the  honor  of  our  country,  it  is  possible 
to  find  a  few  technicalities  which  would  do  no  dis 
credit  to  our  neighbors.  Where  one  of  them  would 
bring  a  habeas  corpus  —  a  name  felicitously  expres 
sive,  according  to  the  English  method  of  civil  lib 
erty —  an  inhabitant  of  the  North,  in  the  same  un 
fortunate  position,  would  take  to  running  his  letters. 
We  have  no  turbary,  or  any  other  easement ;  but, 
to  compensate  us,  we  have  thirlage,  outsucken  mul 
tures,  in  suck  en  multures,  and  dry  multures  ;  as  also 
we  have  a  sowmen  and  rowmen,  as  any  one  who 
has  been  so  fortunate  as  to  hear  Mr.  Outram's  pa- 


ceedingly  rare,  some  malicious  person  having  put  the  author  up 
to  their  absurdity. 

1  [This  and  the  amusing  account  which  follows  of  the  many 
and  great  variations  between  the  Scotch  and  English  forms  of 
law,  which  are  signs  of  a  difference  at  least  equal  in  spirit,  are 
interesting  evidence  of  the  radical  unlikeness,  as  well  in  institu 
tions  as  in  race,  of  the  two  peoples  which  form  the  most  impor 
tant  elements  of  the  British  nation.  No  shadow  of  such  unlikeness 
exists  or  ever  has  existed  in  this  country,  except  in  one  State,  — 
Louisiana.  —  W.J 


144  ins  FUNCTIONS. 

thetic  lyric  on  that  interesting  servitude,  will  re 
member  in  conjunction  with  pleasing  associations. 
To  do  the  duty  of  a  Duces  Tecun  we  have  a  dili 
gence  against  havers.  We  have  no  capias  ad  faci 
endum  (abbreviated  cap  ad  fac),  nor  have  we  the 
fieri  facias,  familiarly  termed  fi  fa,  but  we  have  per 
haps  as  good  in  the  in  meditatione  fugse  warrant, 
familiarly  abbreviated  into  fugie,  as  poor  Peter 
Peebles  termed  it,  when  he  burst  in  upon  the 
party  assembled  at  Justice  Foxley's,  exclaiming, 
"  Is't  here  they  sell  the  fugie  warrants  ?  "  l 

I  am  not  sure  but,  in  the  very  mighty  heart  of 
all  legal  formality  and  technicality  —  the  Statutes  at 
Large  —  some  funny  things  might  be  found.  The 
best  that  now  occurs  to  the  memory  is  not  to  be 
brought  to  book,  and  must  be  given  as  a  tradition 
of  the  time  when  George  III.  was  king.  Its  tenor 
is,  that  a  bill  which  proposed,  as  the  punishment  of 
an  offence,  to  levy  a  certain  pecuniary  penalty,  one 
half  thereof  to  go  to  his  Majesty  and  the  other  half 

1  There  are  two  old  methods  of  paying  rent  in  Scotland  — 
Kane  and  Carriages  ;  the  one  being  rent  in  kind  from  the  farm 
yard,  the  other  being  an  obligation  to  furnish  the  landlord  with 
a  certain  amount  of  carriage,  or  rather  cartage.  In  one  of  the 
vexed  cases  of  domicile,  which  had  found  its  way  into  the  House 
of  Lords,  a  Scotch  lawyer  argued  that  a  landed  gentleman  had 
shown  his  determination  to  abandon  his  residence  in  Scotland 
by  having  given  up  his  "  kane  and  carriages."  It  is  said  that 
the  argument  went  further  than  he  expected  —  the  English  law 
yers  admitting  that  it  was  indeed  very  strong  evidence  of  an 
intended  change  of  domicile  when  the  laird  not  only  ceased 
to  keep  a  carriage,  but  actually  divested  himself  of  his  walking- 
cane. 


THE   GLEANER  AND  HIS  HARVEST.        145 

to  the  informer,  was  altered  in  committee,  in  so  far 
that,  when  it  appeared  in  the  form  of  an  act,  the 
punishment  was  changed  to  whipping  and  imprison 
ment,  the  destination  being  left  unaltered. 

It  is  wonderful  that  such  mistakes  are  not  of 
frequent  occurrence  when  one  remembers  the  hot 
hasty  work  often  done  by  committees,  and  the  com 
plex  entanglements  of  sentences  on  which  they  have 
to  work.  Bentham  was  at  the  trouble  of  counting 
the  words  in  one  sentence  of  an  Act  of  Parliament,, 
and  found  that,  beginning  with  "  Whereas  "  and 
ending  with  the  word  "  repealed,"  it  was  precisely 
the  length  of  an  ordinary  three-volume  novel.  To 
offer  the  reader  that  sentence  on  the  present  occa 
sion  would  be  rather  a  heavy  jest,  and  as  little 
reasonable  as  the  revenge  offered  to  a  village  school 
master  who,  having  complained  that  the  whole  of 
his  little  treatise  on  the  Differential  Calculus  was 
printed  bodily  in  one  of  the  earlier  editions  of  the 
Encyclopaedia  Britannica  (not  so  profitable  as  the 
later),  was  told  that  he  was  welcome,  in  his  turn, 
to  incorporate  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  in  the 
next  edition  of  his  little  treatise. 

In  the  supposition,  however,  that  there  are  few 
readers  who,  like  Lord  King,  can  boast  of  having 
read  the  Statutes  at  Large  through,  I  venture  to  give 
a  title  of  an  Act  —  a  title  only,  remember,  of  one 
of  the  bundle  of  acts  passed  in  one  session  —  as  an 
instance  of  the  comprehensiveness  of  English  statute 
law,  and  the  lively  way  in  which  it  skips  from  one 
subject  to  another.  It  is  called  — 
10 


146  HIS  FUNCTIONS. 

"  An  Act  to  continue  several  laws  for  the  better 
regulating  of  pilots,  for  the  conducting  of  ships  and 
vessels  from  Dover,  Deal,  and  the  Isle  of  Thanet, 
up  the  River  Thames  and  Medway ;  and  for  the 
permitting  rum  or  spirits  of  the  British  sugar  plan 
tations  to  be  landed  before  the  duties  of  excise  are 
paid  thereon  ;  and  to  continue  and  amend  an  Act 
for  preventing  fraud  in  the  admeasurement  of  coals 
within  the  city  and  liberties  of  Westminster,  and 
several  parishes  near  thereunto  ;  and  to  continue 
several  laws  for  preventing  exactions  of  occupiers  of 
locks  and  wears  upon  the  River  Thames  westward  ; 
and  for  ascertaining  the  rates  of  water-carriage  upon 
the  said  river ;  and  for  the  better  regulation  and 
government  of  seamen  in  the  merchant  service ;  and 
also  to  amend  so  much  of  an  Act  made  during  the 
reign  of  King  George  I.  as  relates  to  the  better 
preservation  of  salmon  in  the  River  Ribble ;  and  to 
regulate  fees  in  trials  and  assizes  at  nisi  prius,"  &c. 

But  this  gets  tiresome,  and  we  are  only  half  way 
through  the  title  after  all.  If  the  reader  wants  the 
rest  of  it,  as  also  the  substantial  Act  itself,  whereof 
it  is  the  title,  let  him  turn  to  the  23d  of  Geo.  II., 
chap.  26. 

No  wonder,  if  he  anticipated  this  sort  of  thing, 
that  Bacon  should  have  commended  "  the  excellent 
brevity  of  the  old  Scots  acts."  Here,  for  instance, 
is  a  specimen,  an  actual  statute  at  large,  such  as 
they  were  in  those  pigmy  days  :  — 

"  Item,  it  is  statute  that  gif  onie  of  the  King's 
lieges  passes  in  England,  and  resides  and  remains 


THE  GLEANER  AND  HIS  HARVEST. 

there  against  the  King's  will,  he  shall  be  halden  as 
Traiter  to  the  King." 

Here  is  another,  very  comprehensive,  and  worth 
a  little  library  of  modern  statute-books,  if  it  was 
duly  enforced :  — 

"  Item,  it  is  statute  and  ordained,  that  all  our 
Sovereign  lord's  lieges  being  under  his  obeisance, 
and  especially  the  Isles,  be  ruled  by  our  Sovereign 
lord's  own  laws,  and  the  common  laws  of  the  realm, 
and  none  other  laws." 

The  Irish  statute-book  opens  characteristically 
with  "  An  Act  that  the  King's  officers  may  travel 
by  sea  from  one  place  to  another  within  the  land  of 
Ireland."1  And  further  on  we  have  a  whole  series 

1  [I  am  as  much  at  loss  to  discover  what  is  characteristic  in 
this  opening  sentence  of  the  Irish  statute  book,  as  I  was  with 
regard  to  the  emendation  of  the  passage  in  Hamlet,  on  page  67. 
The  author  plainly  intimates  that  the  passage  contains  a  bull ; 
but  it  does  not,  or  the  semblance  of  one.  Dublin  and  Cork,  I 
take  it,  are  both  "  within  the  land  of  Ireland/'  and  yet  it  is  com 
mon  enough  to  "  travel  by  sea  "  from  one  to  the  other.  The 
author  shows  elsewhere  a  very  nice  appreciation  of  what  is 
essential  to  a  bull.  I  do  not  know  that  a  bull  has  ever  been 
exactly  defined  ;  but  it  seems  to  me  that  its  essential  element 
is  a  statement  of  the  impossible  and  preposterous  with  a  ludi 
crous  semblance  to  the  possible  and  natural.  Thus  the  account 
on  page  136  of  the  duel  is  an  absolutely  perfect  bull.  So  is  the 
advertisement  on  page  158  describing  a  man  whose  age  is  not 
known,  but  who  looks  older  than  he  is.  Perhaps  there  is  no  more 
complete  and  exquisite  bull  than  the  reply  of  the  Irishman  who 
had  been  some  time  in  this  country,  to  the  question  of  his  newly 
arrived  countryman,  as  to  the  political  condition  of  the  people 
here.  "  Is  it  thrue,  Pat,  that  wan  man's  as  good  as  another  in 
this  counthry?"  "Yis,  be  jabers,  an'  betther  too."  The  ex 
quisite  touch  in  this  cannot  be  appreciated  by  any  one  who  does 


148  HIS   FUNCTIONS. 

of  acts,  with  a  conjunction  of  epithets  in  their  titles 
which,  at  the  present  day,  sounds  rather  startling, 
"  for  the  better  suppressing  Tories,  Robbers,  and 
Rapparees,  and  for  preventing  robberies,  burglaries, 
and  other  heinous  crimes."  The  classes  so  associ 
ated  having  an  unreasonable  dislike  of  being  killed, 
difficulties  are  thus  put  in  the  way  of  those  bene 
ficially  employed  in  killing  them,  insomuch  that 
they,  "  upon  the  killing  of  any  one  of  their  number, 

not  know  the  presumption  and  self-importance  of  the  Irishmen 
who  come  here  (I  except,  of  course,  the  educated  and  intelli 
gent  few) ;  —  a  presumption  in  which  they  are  confirmed  by  the 
fact,  that,  owing  to  the  well-known  indifference  of  the  very  large 
cultivated  class  of  the  North  to  political  affairs,  and  their  abso 
lute  non-appearance  in  them  under  ordinary  circumstances,  (for 
which  indifference  there  are  amply  sufficient  reasons,)  the  Irish 
formerly  and  now  the  Irish  and  the  German  citizens,  though 
comparatively  so  few,  hold  the  balance  of  political  power,  and 
therefore  are  courted  not  only  by  demagogues,  but  even  by  such 
honest  men  as  have  engaged  in  politics.  But  to  return  to  the 
bulls.  The  author  doubts  (page  137)  whether  Sir  Boyle  Roche's 
often  quoted  saying  about  being  in  two  places  at  once,  like  a  bird, 
is  a  genuine  bull.  There  can  be  no  doubt  about  it  at  all.  It  is 
simply  a  stupid  blunder.  There  is  not  the  least  semblance  of 
truth  in  it.  An  intelligent  child  would  not  be  bewildered  by  it 
for  a  moment.  He  would  see  instantly,  if  not  intuitively,  that 
quickness  of  passage  and  identity  of  place  are  a  contradiction  in 
terms.  The  saying  is  suggestive  of  one  which  is  characteristic 
of  its  birthplace  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  where  humor  often 
consciously  takes  a  form  much  like  the  unconscious  absurdity  of 
Irish  bulls.  There  is  a  little  river  at  the  West  which  is  said  to 
be  "  so  crooked  that  when  birds  fly  across  it  they  light  upon 
the  same  side  they  started  from."  The  story  put  into  the  ne 
gro's  mouth  who  was  sent  to  count  the  pigs,  and  reported  that 
he  had  counted  them  all  except  one  little  one  who  ran  about  so 
fast  that  he  couldn't  count  him,  is  also  a  pure  bull  of  this  coun 
try's  breeding.  —  W.] 


THE   GLEANER  AND  HIS  HARVEST.       149 

are  thereby  so  alarmed  and  put  upon  their  keeping, 
that  it  hath  been  found  impracticable  for  such  per 
son  or  persons  to  discover  and  apprehend,  or  kill 
any  more  of  them,  whereby  they  are  discouraged 
from  discovering  and  apprehending  or  killing,"  and 
so  forth.  There  is  a  strange  and  melancholy  his 
torical  interest  in  these  motley  enactments,  since 
they  almost  verbatim  repeat  the  legislation  about 
the  Highland  clans  passed  a  century  earlier  by  the 
Lowland  Parliament  of  Scotland. 

To  one  shelf  of  the  law  library,  however,  an  in 
terest  attaches  which  few  are  ready  to  deny — that 
devoted  to  the  literature  of  Criminal  Trials.  It 
will  go  hard  indeed,  if,  besides  the  reports  of  mere 
technicalities,  there  be  not  here  some  glimpses  of 
the  sad  romances  which  lie  at  their  heart ;  and, 
at  all  events,  when  the  page  passes  a  very  slight 
degree  beyond  the  strictly  professional,  the  tech 
nicalities  will  be  found  mingled  with  abundant 

o 

narrative.  The  State  Trials,  for  instance  —  surely 
a  lawyer's  book  —  contains  the  materials  of  a  thou 
sand  romances  ;  nor  are  these  all  attached  to  politi 
cal  offences ;  as,  fortunately,  the  book  is  better 
than  its  name,  and  makes  a  virtuous  effort  to 
embrace  all  the  remarkable  trials  coming  within 
the  long  period  covered  by  the  collection.  Some 
assistance  may  be  got,  at  the  same  time,  from 
minor  luminaries,  such  as  the  Newgate  Calendar  — 
not  to  be  commended,  certainly,  for  its  literary 
merits,  but  full  of  matters  strange  and  horrible, 
which,  like  the  gloomy  forest  of  the  Castle  of 


150  HIS  FUNCTIONS. 

Indolence,  "  send  forth  a  sleepy  horror  through 
the  blood." 

There  are  many  other  books  where  records  of 
remarkable  crimes  are  mixed  up  with  much  rubbish, 
as,  The  Terrific  Register,  God's  Revenge  against 
Murder,  a  little  French  book  called  Histoire  Gene- 
rale  des  Larrons  (1623),  and  if  the  inquirer's  taste 
turn  towards  maritime  crimes,  the  History  of  the 
Bucaniers,  by  Esquemeling.  A  little  work  in  four 
volumes,  called  The  Criminal  Recorder,  by  a  stu 
dent  in  the  Inner  Temple,  can  be  commended  as 
a  sort  of  encyclopaedia  of  this  kind  of  literature. 
It  professes  —  and  is  not  far  from  accomplishing 
the  profession  —  to  give  biographical  sketches  of 
notorious  public  characters,  including  "  murderers, 
traitors,  pirates,  mutineers,  incendiaries,  defrauders, 
rioters,  sharpers,  highwaymen,  footpads,  pickpock 
ets,  swindlers,  housebreakers,  coiners,  receivers, 
extortioners,  and  other  noted  persons  who  have  suf 
fered  the  sentence  of  the  law  for  criminal  offences." 
By  far  the  most  luxurious  book  of  this  kind,  how 
ever,  in  the  English  language,  is  Captain  Johnston's 
Lives  of  Highwaymen  and  Pirates.  It  is  rare  to 
find  it  now  complete.  The  old  folio  editions  have 
been  often  mutilated  by  over  use:  the  many  later 
editions  in  octavo  are  mutilated  by  design  of  their 
editors  ;  and  for  conveying  any  idea  of  the  rough 
truthful  descriptiveness  of  a  book  compiled  in  the 
palmy  days  of  highway  robbery,  they  are  worthless. 

All  our  literature  of  that  nature  must,  however, 
yield  to  the  French  Causes  Celebres,  a  term  ren- 


THE   GLEANER  AND  HIS  HARVEST. 

dered  so  significant  by  the  value  and  interest  of  the 
book  it  names,  as  to  have  been  borrowed  by  writers 
in  this  country  to  render  their  works  attractive.  It 
must  be  noted  as  a  reason  for  the  success  of  this 
work,  and  also  of  the  German  collection  by  Feuer- 
bach,  that  the  despotic  Continental  method  of  pro 
cedure  by  secret  inquiry  affords  much  better  ma 
terial  for  narrative  than  ours  by  open  trial.  We 
make,  no  doubt,  a  great  drama  of  a  criminal  trial. 
Everything  is  brought  on  the  stage  at  once,  and 
cleared  off  before  an  audience  excited  so  as  no 
player  ever  could  excite  ;  but  it  loses  in  reading ; 
while  the  Continental  inquiry,  with  its  slow  secret 
development  of  the  plot,  makes  the  better  novel 
for  the  fireside. 

There  is  a  method  by  which,  among  ourselves, 
the  trial  can  be  imbedded  in  a  narrative  which 
may  carry  down  to  later  generations  a  condensed 
reflection  of  that  protracted  expectation  and  ex 
citement  which  disturb  society  during  the  investi 
gations  and  trials  occasioned  by  any  great  crime. 
This  is  by  "  illustrating  "  the  trial,  through  a  pro 
cess  resembling  that  which  has  been  already  sup 
posed  to  have  been  applied  to  one  of  Watts's 
hymns.  In  this  instance  there  will  be  all  the 
newspaper  scraps  —  all  the  hawker's  broadsides 
—  the  portraits  of  the  criminal,  of  the  chief  wit 
nesses,  the  judges,  the  counsel,  and  various  other 
persons,  —  everything  in  literature  or  art  that, 
bears  on  the  great  question. 

He  who  inherits  or  has  been  able  to  procure  a-. 


152  HIS  FUNCTIONS. 

collection  of  such  illustrated  trials,  a  century  or  so 
old,  is  deemed  fortunate  among  collectors,  for  he 
can  at  any  time  raise  up  for  himself  the  spectre  as 
it  were  of  the  great  mystery  and  exposure  that  for 
weeks  was  the  absorbing  topic  of  attraction  to  mill 
ions.  The  curtains  are  down  —  the  fire  burns 
bright  —  the  cat  purrs  on  the  rug;  Atticus,  soused 
in  his  easy-chair,  cannot  be  at  the  trouble  of  going 
to  see  Macbeth  or  Othello  —  he  will  sup  full  of 
horrors  from  his  own  stores.  Accordingly  he  takes 
down  an  unseemly  volume,  characterized  by  a  flabby 
obesity  by  reason  of  the  unequal  size  of  the  papers 
contained  in  it,  all  being  bound  to  the  back,  while 
the  largest  only  reach  the  margin.  The  first  thing 
at  opening  is  the  dingy  pea-green-looking  para 
graph  from  the  provincial  newspaper,  describing 
how  the  reapers,  going  to  their  work  at  dawn,  saw 
the  clay  beaten  with  the  marks  of  struggle,  and, 
following  the  dictates  of  curiosity,  saw  a  bloody 
rag  sticking  on  a  tree,  the  leaves  also  streaked 
with  red,  and,  lastly,  the  instrument  of  violence 
hidden  in  the  moss  ;  next  comes  from  another 
source  the  lamentations  for  a  young  woman  who 
had  left  her  home  —  then  the  excitement  of  put 
ting  that  and  that  together  —  the  search,  and  the 
discovery  of  the  body.  The  next  paragraph  turns 
suspense  into  exulting  wrath  :  the  perpetrator  has 
been  found  with  his  bloody  shirt  on  —  a  scowling 
murderous  villain  as  ever  was  seen  —  an  eminent 
poacher,  and  fit  for  anything.  But  the  next  para 
graph  turns  the  tables.  The  ruffian  had  his  own 


THE  GLEANER  AND  HIS  HARVEST.         153 

secrets  of  what  he  had  been  abcmt  that  night,  and 
at  last  makes  a  clean  breast.  It  would  have  been 
a  bad  business  for  him  at  any  other  time,  but  now 
he  is  a  revealing  angel,  for  he  noted  this  and  that 
in  the  course  of  his  own  little  game,  and  gives 
justice  the  thread  which  leads  to  a  wonderful 
romance,  and  brings  home  desperate  crime  to 
that  quarter  where,  from  rank,  education,  and 
profession,  it  was  least  likely  to  be  found.  Then 
comes  the  trial  and  the  execution  ;  and  so,  at  a 
sitting,  has  been  swallowed  all  that  excitement 
which,  at  some  time  long  ago,  chained  up  the 
public  in  protracted  suspense  for  weeks. 

The  reader  will  see,  from  what  I  have  just  been 
saying,  that  I  am  not  prepared  to  back  Charles 
Lamb's  Index  Expurgatorius.1  It  is  difficult,  almost 

1  "In  this  catalogue  of  books  which  are  no  books  —  biblia  a  bilUa 
—  I  reckon  court  calendars,  directories,  pocket-books,  draught 
boards  bound  and  lettered  on  the  back,  scientific  treatises,  alma 
nacs.  statutes  at  large  ;  the  works  of  Hume,  Gibbon,  l?obert- 
son,  Beattie,  Soame  Jenyns,  and  generally  all  those  volumes 
which  'no  gentleman's  library  should  be  without;'  the  histo 
ries  of  Flavius  Josephus  (that  learned  Jew)  and  Paley's  Moral 
Philosophy.  With  these  exceptions,  I  can  read  almost  any 
thing.  I  bless  my  stars  for  a  taste  so  catholic,  so  unexcluding. 
I  confess  that  it  moves  my  spleen  to  see  these  things  in  books' 
clothing  perched  upon  shelves,  like  false  saints,  usurpers  of  true 
shrines,  intruders  into  the  sanctuary,  thrusting  out  the  legiti 
mate  occupants.  To  reach  down  a  well-bound  semblance  of  a 
volume,  and  hope  it  some  kind-hearted  play-book,  then,  opening 
what  '  seem  its  leaves,'  to  come  bolt  upon  a  withering  popula 
tion  essay.  To  expect  a  Steele,  or  a  Farquhar,  and  find  — Adam 
Smith.  To  view  a  well-arranged  assortment  of  block-headed 
encyclopaedias  (Anglicanas  or  Metropolitanas)  set  out  in  an  array 


154  HIS  FUNCTIONS. 

impossible,  to  find  the  book  from  which  something 
either  valuable  or  amusing  may  not  be  found,  if  the 
proper  alembic  be  applied.  I  know  books  that  are 
curious,  and  really  amusing,  from  their  excessive 
badness.  If  you  want  to  find  precisely  how  a 
thing  ought  not  to  be  said,  you  take  one  of  them 
down,  and  make  it  perform  the  service  of  the  in 
toxicated  Spartan  slave.  There  are  some  volumes 
in  which,  at  a  chance  opening,  you  are  certain  to 
find  a  mere  platitude  delivered  in  the  most  superb 
and  amazing  climax  of  big  words,  and  others  in 
which  you  have  a  like  happy  facility  in  finding 
every  proposition  stated  with  its  stern  forward,  as 
sailors  say,  or  in  some  other  grotesque  mismanage 
ment  of  composition.  There  are  no  better  farces 
on  or  off  the  stage  than  when  two  or  three  con 
genial  spirits  ransack  books  of  this  kind,  and  com 
pete  with  each  other  in  taking  fun  out  of  them. 
There  is  a  solid  volume,  written  in  an  inquiring 
spirit,  but  in  a  manner  which  reminds  one  of  deep 
calling  unto  deep,  about  the  dark  superstitions  of  a 
country  which  was  once  a  separate  European  king 
dom.  I  feel  a  peculiar  interest  in  it,  from  the 
author  having  informed  me,  by  way  of  communi 
cating  an  important  fact  in  literary  history,  and 
also  as  an  example  to  be  followed  by  literary  as- 

of  russia  or  morocco,  when  a  tithe  of  that  good  leather  -would 
comfortably  reclothe  my  shivering  folios,  would  renovate  Paracel 
sus  himself,  and  enable  old  Raymund  Lully  to  look  like  himself 
again  in  the  world.  I  never  see  these  impostors  but  I  long  to 
strip  them,  to  warm  my  ragged  veterans  in  their  spoils."  —  Es 
says  of  Elia. 


THE  GLEANER  AND  HIS  HARVEST.        155 

pirants,  that,  before  committing  the  book  to  the 
press,  he  had  written  it  over  sixteen  times.  It  would 
have  been  valuable  to  have  his  first  manuscript, 
were  it  only  that  one  might  form  some  idea  of  the 
steps  by  which  he  had  brought  it  into  the  condition 
in  which  it  was  printed.  But  its  perusal  in  that 
condition  was  not  entirely  thrown  away,  since  I 
was  able  to  recommend  it  to  a  teacher  of  composi 
tion,  as  containing,  within  a  moderate  compass  — 
after  the  manner,  in  fact,  of  a  handbook  —  good 
practical  specimens  of  every  description  of  deprav 
ity  of  style  of  which  the  English  language  is  sus 
ceptible. 

In  the  present  day,  when  few  scholars  have  op 
portunities  of  enriching  the  world  with  their  prison 
hours,  perhaps  the  best  conditions  for  testing  how 
far  any  volume  or  portion  of  printed  matter,  how 
ever  hopeless-looking,  may  yet  yield  edifying  or 
amusing  matter  to  a  sufficient  pressure,  will  occur 
when  a  bookish  person  finds  himself  imprisoned  in 
a  country  inn,  say  for  twenty-four  hours.  Such 
things  are  not  impossible  in  this  age  of  rapid  move 
ment.  It  is  not  long  since  a  train,  freighted  with 
musical  artistes,  sent  express  to  perform  at  a  provin 
cial  concert  and  be  back  immediately  in  town  for 
other  engagements,  were  caught  by  a  great  snow 
storm,  which  obliterated  the  railway,  and  had  to 
live  for  a  week  or  two  in  a  wayside  alehouse,  in 
one  of  the  dreariest  districts  of  Scotland.  The 
possessor  and  user  of  a  large  library  undergoing 
such  a  calamity  in  a  modified  shape  will  be  able  to 


156  MS  FUNCTIONS. 

form  a  conception  of  the  resources  at  his  disposal, 
and  to  calculate  how  lon£  it  will  take  him  to  ex- 

O 

haust  the  intellectual  treasures  at  his  command,  just 
as  a  millionnaire,  haunted  as  such  people  sometimes 
are  by  the  dread  of  coming  on  the  parish,  might 
test  how  long  a  life  his  invested  capital  would  sup 
port  by  spending  a  winter  in  a  Shetland  cottage, 
and  living  on  what  he  could  procure.  Having  ex 
hausted  all  other  sources  of  excitement  and  interest, 
the  belated  traveller  is  supposed  to  call  for  the  liter 
ature  of  the  establishment.  Perhaps  the  Directory 
of  the  county  town  is  the  only  available  volume. 
Who  shall  say  what  the  belated  traveller  may  make 
of  this  ?  He  may  do  a  turn  in  local  statistics,  or, 
if  his  ambition  rises  higher,  he  may  pursue  some 
valuable  ethnological  inquiries,  trying  whether  Cel 
tic  or  Saxon  names  prevail,  and  testing  the  justice 
of  Mr.  Thierry's  theory  by  counting  the  Norman 
patronymics,  and  observing  whether  any  of  them 
are  owned  by  persons  following  plebeian  and  sordid 
occupations.  If  in  after-life  the  sojourner  should 
come  in  contact  with  people  interested  in  the  poli 
tics  or  business  of  that  county  town,  he  will  sur 
prise  them  by  exhibiting  his  minute  acquaintance 
with  its  affairs. 

If,  besides  the  Directory,  an  Almanac,  old  or 
new,  is  to  be  had,  the  analysis  may  be  conducted 
on  a  greatly  widened  basis.  The  rotations  of  the 
changes  of  the  seasons  may  at  the  same  time  sug 
gest  many  appropriate  reflections  on  the  progress  of 
man  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave,  and  all  that  he 


THE   GLEANER  AND  HIS  HARVEST.         157 

meets  with  between  the  alpha  and  omega  ;  and  if 
the  prisoner  is  a  man  of  genius,  the  announcements 
of  eclipses  and  other  solar  phenomena  will  suggest 
trains  of  thought  which  he  can  cany  up  to  any 
height  of  sublimity.  A  person  in  the  circumstan 
ces  supposed,  after  he  has  exhausted  the  Directory 
and  the  Almanac,  may  perhaps  be  led  to  read  (if 
he  can  get)  Zimmerman  On  Solitude,  Harvey's 
Meditations,  Watts  On  the  Improvement  of  the 
Mind,  or  Hannah  More's  Sacred  Dramas.  Who 
knows  what  he  may  be  reduced  to  ?  I  remember 
the  great  Irish  liberator  telling  how,  when  once 
detained  in  an  inn  in  Switzerland,  he  could  find  no 
book  to  beguile  the  time  with  but  the  Lettres  Pro- 
vinciales  of  Pascal.  I  have  no  doubt  that  the 
coerced  perusal  of  them  to  which  he  had  to  submit 
did  him  a  deal  of  good. 

Let  us  imagine  that  nothing  better  is  to  be  found 
than  the  advertising  sheet  of  an  old  newspaper  — 
never  mind.  Let  the  unfortunate  man  fall  to  and 
read  the  advertisements  courageously,  and  make  the 
best  of  them.  An  advertisement  is  itself  a  fact, 
though  it  may  sometimes  be  the  vehicle  of  a  false 
hood  ;  and,  as  some  one  has  remarked,  he  who  has  a 
fact  in  hand  is  like  a  turner  with  a  piece  of  wood  in 
his  lathe,  which  he  can  manipulate  to  his  liking, 
tooling  it  in  any  way,  as  a  plain  cylinder  or  a  richly 
ornamented  toy.  There  have  been  fortunate  in 
stances  of  people  driven  to  read  them  finding  good 
jokes  and  other  enjoyable  things  in  advertisements 
—  such  things  as  make  one  almost  regret  that  so 


158  nis  FUNCTIONS. 

little  attention  has  been  paid  to  this  department  of 
literature.1  Advertisements,  in  fact,  bring  us  into 
the  very  heart  of  life  and  business,  and  there  is  a 
world  of  interest  in  them.  Suppose  that  the  dirty 
broadside  you  pick  up  in  the  dingy  inn's  soiled 
room  contains  the  annual  announcement  of  the 
reassembling  of  the  school  in  which  you  spent  your 
own  years  of  school-boy  life  —  what  a  mingled  and 
many-figured  romance  does  it  recall  of  all  that  has 
befallen  to  yourself  and  others  since  the  day  when 
the  same  advertisement  made  you  sigh,  because  the 
hour  was  close  at  hand  when  you  were  to  leave 
home  and  all  its  homely  ways  to  dwell  among 
strangers  !  Going  onward,  you  remember  how 
each  one  after  another  ceased  to  be  a  stranger,  and 
twined  himself  about  your  heart ;  and  then  comes 
the  reflection,  Where  are  they  all  now  ?  You  re 
member  how 

"  He,  the  young  and  strong,  who  cherished 

Noble  longings  for  the  strife, 
By  the  roadside  fell  and  perished, 
Weary  with  the  march  of  life." 

You  recall  to  your  memory  also  those  two  insepara- 

1  Take,  for  instance,  the  announcement  of  the  wants  of  an 
affluent  and  pious  elderly  lady,  desirous  of  having  the  services 
of  a  domestic  like-minded  with  herself,  who  appeals  to  the  pub 
lic  for  a  "  groom  to  take  charge  of  two  carriage-horses  of  a 
serious  turn  of  mind."  So  also  the  simple-hearted  innkeeper, 
who  founds  on  his  limited  "  charges  and  civility  ; "  or  the  de 
scription  given  by  a  distracted  family  of  a  runaway  member, 
who  consider  that  they  are  affording  valuable  means  for  his  iden 
tification  by  saying,  "age  not  precisely  known  —  but  looks  older 
than  he  is.' 


THE  GLEANER  AND  HIS  HARVEST.       159 

bles  —  linked  together,  it  would  seem,  because  they 
were  so  unlike.  The  one,  gentle,  dreamy,  and 
romantic,  was  to  be  the  genius  of  the  set ;  but  alas, 
he  "  took  to  bad  habits,"  and  oozed  into  the  slime 
of  life,  imperceptibly  almost,  hurting  no  creature 
but  himself —  unless  it  may  be  that  to  some  parent 
or  other  near  of  kin  his  gentle  facility  may  have 
caused  keener  pangs  than  others  give  by  cruelty 
and  tyranny.  The  other,  bright-eyed,  healthy, 
strong,  and  keen-tempered  —  the  best  fighter  and 
runner  and  leaper  in  the  school  —  the  dare-devil 
who  was  the  leader  in  every  row  —  took  to  Greek 
much  about  the  time  when  his  companion  took  to 
drinking,  got  a  presentation,  wrote  some  wonderful 
things  about  the  functions  of  the  chorus,  and  is  now 
on  the  fair  road  to  a  bishopric. 

Next  arises  the  vision  of  "  the  big  boy,"  the  lout 
—  the  butt  of  every  one,  even  of  the  masters,  who, 
when  any  little  imp  did  a  thing  well,  always  made 
the  appropriate  laudation  tell  to  the  detriment  of 
the  big  boy,  as  if  he  were  bound  to  be  as  super 
fluous  in  intellect  as  in  flesh.  He  has  sufficiently 
dinned  into  him  to  make  him  thoroughly  modest, 
poor  fellow,  how  all  great  men  were  little.  Napo 
leon  was  little,  so  was  Frederic  the  Great,  William 
III.,  the  illustrious  Cond^,  Pope,  Horace,  Anacreon, 
Campbell,  Tom  Moore,  and  Jeffrey.  His  relations 
have  so  thoroughly  given  in  to  the  prejudice  against 
him,  that  they  get  him  a  cadetship  because  he  is  fit 
for  nothing  at  home  ;  and  now,  years  afterwards, 
the  newspapers  resound  with  his  fame  —  how,  when 


1GO  MS  FUNCTIONS. 

at  the  quietest  of  all  stations  when  the  mutiny  sud 
denly  broke  out  in  its  most  murderous  shape,  and 
even  experienced  veterans  lost  heart,  he  remained 
firm  and  collected,  quietly  developing,  one  after  an 
other,  resources  of  which  he  was  not  himself  aware, 
and  in  the  end  putting  things  right,  partly  by  stern 
vigor,  but  more  by  a  quiet  tact  and  genial  appre 
ciation  of  the  native  character.  But  what  has  be 
come  of  the  Dux  —  him  who,  in  the  predictions  of 
all,  teachers  and  taught,  was  to  render  the  institu 
tion  some  day  illustrious  by  occupying  the  Wool 
sack,  or  the  chief  place  at  the  Speaker's  right 
hand  ?  A  curious  destiny  is  his :  at  a  certain 
point  the  curve  of  his  ascent  was  as  it  were  trun 
cated,  and  he  took  to  the  commonest  level  of  or 
dinary  life.  He  may  now  be  seen,  staid  and  sedate 
in  his  walk,  which  brings  him,  with  a  regularity 
that  has  rendered  him  useful  to  neighbours  own 
ing  erratic  watches,  day  by  day  to  a  lofty  three- 
legged  stool,  mounted  on  which,  all  his  proceed 
ings  confirm  the  high  character  retained  by  him 
through  several  years  for  the  neatness  of  his  hand 
writing,  and  especially  for  his  precision  in  dotting 
his  i's  and  stroking  his  t's. 

This  is  all  along  of  the  use  which  the  reflective 
man  may  make  of  an  old  advertisement.  If  it  be 
old,  the  older  the  better  —  the  more  likely  is  it  to 
contain  matter  of  curious  interest  or  instruction 
about  the  ways  of  men.  To  show  this,  I  reprint 
two  advertisements  from  British  newspapers. 


THE  GLEANER  AND  HIS  HARVEST.        161 


From  the  Public  Advertiser  of  28th  March,  1769. 

be  SOLD,  A  BLACK  GIRL,  the  property  of  J.  B , 

eleven  years  of  age,  who  is  extremely  handy,  works  at 
her  needle  tolerably,  and  speaks  English  perfectly  well :  is  of  an 
excellent  temper,  and  willing  disposition. 

"  Inquire  of  Mr  Owen,  at  the  Angel   Inn,  behind   St.  Cle 
ment's  Church  in  the  Strand." 


From  the  Edinburgh  Evening  Courant,  18th  April,, 

1768. 

"A  BLACK  BOY   TO    SELL. 

«  mO  be  SOLD,  A  BLACK  BOY,  with  long  hair,  stout  made,. 
[_  and  well-limbed  —  is  good-tempered,  can  dress  hair,  and' 
take  care  of  a  horse  indifferently.  He  has  been  in  Britain  near 
three  years. 

"  Any  person  that  inclines  to  purchase  him  may  have  him  for 
£40.  He  belongs  to  Captain  ABERCROMBIE  at  Broughton. 

"  This  advertisement  not  to  be  repeated." 

There  was  at  that  time  probably  more  of  this 
description  of  property  in  Britain  than  in  Virginia. 
It  had  become  fashionable,  as  one  may  see  in  Ho 
garth.  Such  advertisements  —  they  were  abun 
dant —  might  furnish  an  apt  text  on  which  a  philo 
sophical  historian  could  speculate  on  the  probable 
results  to  this  country,  had  not  Mansfield  gone  to 
the  root  of  the  matter  by  denying  all  property  in 
slaves.1 

1  It  was  on  this  occasion,  and  in  answer  to  the  plea  of  the  vast 
property,  amounting  to  millions,  at  issue  on  the  question,  that 
Mansfield  uttered  that  memorable  maxim  which  nobody  can 
11 


162  EIS  FUNCTIONS. 

So  much  for  the  chances  which  still  remain  to 
the  heluo  librorum  or  devourer  of  books,  if,  after 
having  consumed  all  the  solid  volumes  within  his 
reach,  he  should  be  reduced  to  shreds  and  patches 
of  literature,  like  a  ship's  crew  having  resort  to 
shoe-leather  and  the  sweepings  of  the  locker. 


JJrctcnbera. 

;UT  now  to  return  to  the  point  whence 
we  started  —  the  disposition,  and  almost 
the  necessity,  which  the  true  enthusiast 
in  the  pursuit  feels  to  look  into  the  soul, 
as  it  were,  of  his  book,  after  he  has  got  possession 
of  the  body.  When  he  is  not  of  the  omnivorous 
kind,  but  one  who  desires  to  possess  a  particular 
book,  and,  having  got  it,  dips  into  the  contents 
before  committing  it  to  permanent  obscurity  on 
his  loaded  shelves,  there  is,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  a  certain  thread  of  intelligent  association 
linking  the  items  of  his  library  to  each  other. 
The  collector  knows  what  he  wants,  and  why  he 
wants  it,  and  that  why  does  not  entirely  depend 
on  exteriors,  though  he  may  have  his  whim  as  to 
that  also. 

trace  back  to  any  other  authority,  "  Fiat  justitia  —  ruat  ccelum." 
Sir  Thomas  Browne  has,  in  his  Religio  Medici,  "  Ruat  ccelum 
—  fiat  voluntas  tua."  Perhaps  he  may  have  found  this  in  one 
of  the  Fathers. 


PRETENDERS.  163 

He  is  a  totally  different  being  from  the  animal 
who  goes  to  all  sales,  and  buys  every  book  that  is 
cheap.  That  is  a  painfully  low  and  grovelling  type 
of  the  malady  ;  and,  fortunately  for  the  honor  of 
literature,  the  bargain-hunter  who  suffers  under  it 
is  not  in  general  a  special  votary  of  books,  but  buys 
all  bargains  that  come  in  his  way  —  clocks,  tables, 
forks,  spoons,  old  uniforms,  gas-meters,  magic  lan 
terns,  galvanic  batteries,  violins  (warranted  real 
Cremonas  from  their  being  smashed  to  pieces), 
classical  busts  (with  the  same  testimony  to  their 
genuineness),  patent  coffee-pots,  crucibles,  ampu 
tating  knives,  wheel-barrows,  retorts,  cork-screws, 
boot-jacks,  smoke-jacks,  melon  frames,  bath-chairs, 
and  hurdy-gurdies.  It  has  been  said  that  once,  a 
coffin,  made  too  short  for  its  tenant,  being  to  be 
had  an  undoubted  bargain,  was  bought  by  him,  in 
the  hope  that,  some  day  or  other,  it  might  prove 
of  service  in  his  family.  His  library,  if  such  it 
may  be  termed,  is  very  rich  in  old  trade-directo 
ries,  justices  of  peace  and  registers  of  voters,  road 
books,  and  other  useful  manuals ;  but  there  are 
very  learned  books  in  it  too.  That  clean  folio 
Herodotus  was  certainly  extremely  cheap  at  half- 
a-crown ;  and  you  need  not  inform  him  that  the 
ninth  book  is  wanting,  for  he  will  never  find  that 
out.  The  day  when  he  has  discovered  that  any 
book  has  been  bought  by  another  person,  a  better 
bargain  than  his  own  copy,  is  a  black  one  in  his 
calendar ;  but  he  has  a  peculiar  device  of  his  own 
for  getting  over  the  calamity  by  bringing  down  the 


1G4  HIS  FUNCTIONS. 

average  cost  of  his  own  copy  through  fresh  invest 
ments.  Having  had  the  misfortune  to  buy  a  copy 
of  Goldsmith's  History  of  England  for  five  shil 
lings,  while  a  neighbor  flaunts  daily  in  his  face  a 
copy  obtained  for  three,  he  has  been  busily  occu 
pied  in  a  search  for  copies  still  cheaper.  He  has 
now  brought  down  the  average  price  of  his  own 
numerous  copies  to  three  shillings  and  twopence, 
and  hopes  in  another  year  to  get  below  the  three 
shillings. 

Neither  is  the  rich  man  who  purchases  fine  and 
dear  books  by  deputy  to  be  admitted  within  the 
category  of  the  genuine  book-hunter.  He  must 
hunt  himself —  must  actually  undergo  the  anxiety, 
the  fatigue,  and,  so  far  as  purse  is  concerned,  the 
risks  of  the  chase.  Your  rich  man,  known  to  the 
trade  as  a  great  orderer  of  books,  is  like  the  owner 
of  the  great  game-preserve,  where  the  sport  is  heavy 
butchery  ;  there  is  none  of  the  real  zest  of  the 
hunter  of  the  wilderness  to  be  had  within  his  gates. 
The  old  Duke  of  Roxburghe  wisely  sank  his  rank 
and  his  wealth,  and  wandered  industriously  and 
zealously  from  shop  to  stall  over  the  world,  just  as 
he  wandered  over  the  moor  stalking  the  deer.  One 
element  in  the  excitement  of  the  poorer  book-hunter 
he  must  have  lacked  —  the  feeling  of  committing 
something  of  extravagance  —  the  consciousness  of 
parting  with  that  which  will  be  missed.  This  is 
the  sacrifice  which  assures  the  world,  and  satisfies 
the  man's  own  heart,  that  he  is  zealous  and  earnest 
in  the  work  he  has  set  about.  And  it  is  decidedlv 


PRETENDERS.  165 

this  class  who  most  read  and  use  the  books  they 
possess.1  How  genial  a  picture  does  Scott  give  of 
himself  at  the  time  of  the  Roxburghe  sale  —  the 

1  [I  shall  not  resist  the  temptation  of  quoting  here  a  charming 
passage  from  Henry  Ward  Beecher's  "  Star  Papers,"  although 
thousands,  and,  I  believe,  tens  of  thousands  of  that  book  have 
been  sold.  What  our  author  states  as  general  truth  is  to  Mr. 
Beecher  the  inspiration  of  a  picture  full  of  life  and  humor ;  based, 
however,  I  am  sure,  on  a  study  from  nature.  The  latter  seems 
almost  an  expansion  of  the  former,  or  the  former  a  generaliza 
tion  of  the  latter ;  and  yet  the  "  Star  Papers  "  were  published 
seven  years  ago,  and  Mr.  Burton,  doubtless,  never  saw  them. 

"  As  a  hungry  man  eats  first,  and  pays  afterward,  so  the  book- 
buyer  purchases,  and  then  works  at  the  debt  afterward.  This 
paying  is  rather  medicinal.  It  cures  for  a  time.  But  a  relapse 
takes  place.  The  same  longing,  the  same  promises  of  self-denial. 
He  promises  himself  to  put  spurs  on  both  heels  of  his  indus 
try  ;  and  then,  besides  all  this,  he  will  somehow  get  along  when 
the  time  for  payment  comes  !  Ah  !  this  SOMEHOW  !  That  word 
is  as  big  as  a  whole  world,  and  is  stuffed  with  all  the  vagaries 
and  fantasies  that  Fancy  ever  bred  upon  Hope.  And  yet,  is 
there  not  some  comfort  in  buying  books,  to  be  paid  for  ?  We 
have  heard  of  a  sot,  who  wished  his  neck  as  long  as  the  worm 
of  a  still,  that  he  might  so  much  the  longer  enjoy  the  flavor  of 
the  draught !  Thus,  it  is  a  prolonged  excitement  of  purchase, 
if  you  feel  for  six  months  in  a  slight  doubt  whether  the  book  is 
honestly  your  own  or  not.  Had  you  paid  down,  that  would 
have  been  the  end  of  it.  There  would  have  been  no  affectionate 
and  beseeching  look  of  your  books  at  you,  every  time  you  saw 
them,  saying,  as  plain  as  a  book's  eyes  can  say,  '  Do  not  let  me 
be  taken  from  you.' 

"  Moreover,  buying  books  before  you  can  pay  for  them  pro 
motes  caution.  You  do  not  feel  quite  at  liberty  to  take  them 
home.  You  are  married.  Your  wife  keeps  an  account-book. 
She  knows  to  a  penny  what  you  can  and  what  you  cannot 
afford.  She  has  no  'speculation'  in  her  eyes.  Plain  figures 
make  desperate  work  with  airy  *  somehows.'  It  is  a  matter  of  no 
small  skill  and  experience  to  get  your  books  home,  and  into 


166  HIS  FUNCTIONS. 

creation  of  Abbotsford  pulling  him  one  way,  on  the 
other  his  desire  to  accumulate  a  library  round  him 
in  his  Tusculum.  Writing  to  his  familiar  Terry  he 
says,  "  The  worst  of  all  is,  that  while  my  trees  grow 
and  my  fountain  fills,  my  purse,  in  an  inverse  ratio, 
sinks  to  zero.  This  last  circumstance  will,  I  fear, 
make  me  a  very  poor  guest  at  the  literary  entertain 
ment  your  researches  hold  out  for  me.  I  should, 
however,  like  much  to  have  the  treatise  on  Dreams 

their  proper  places,  undiscovered.  Perhaps  the  blundering  Ex 
press  brings  them  to  the  door  just  at  evening.  '  What  is  it,  my 
dear?'  she  says  to  you.  'Oh!  nothing  —  a  few  books  that  I 
cannot  do  without.'  That  smile  !  A  true  housewife  that  loves 
her  husband  can  smile  a  whole  arithmetic  at  him  in  one  look  ! 
Of  course  she  insists,  in  the  kindest  way,  in  sympathizing 
with  you  in  your  literary  acquisition.  She  cuts  the  strings 
of  the  bundle,  (and  of  your  heart,)  and  out  comes  the  whole 
story.  You  have  bought  a  complete  set  of  costly  English 
books,  full  bound  in  calf,  extra  gilt  !  You  are  caught,  and 
feel  very  much  as  if  bound  in  calf  yourself,  and  admirably 
lettered. 

"Now,  this  must  not  happen  frequently.  The  books  must  be 
smuggled  home.  Let  them  be  sent  to  some  near  place.  Then, 
when  your  \vife  has  a  headache,  or  is  out  making  a  call,  or  has 
lain  down,  run  the  books  across  the  frontier  and  threshold,  has 
tily  undo  them,  stop  only  for  one  loving  glance  as  you  put  them 
away  in  the  closet,  or  behind  other  books  on  the  shelf,  or  on  the 
topmost  shelf.  Clear  away  the  twine  and  wrapping-paper,  and 
every  suspicious  circumstance.  Be  very  careful  not  to  be  too 
kind.  That  often  brings  on  detection.  Only  the  other  day  we 
heard  it  said,  somewhere, '  Why,  how  good  you  have  been,  lately. 
I  am  really  afraid  that  you  have  been  carrying  on  mischief  se 
cretly.'  Our  heart  smote  us.  It  was  a  fact.  That  very  day 
we  had  bought  a  few  books  which  '  we  could  not  do  without.' 
After  a  while,  you  can  bring  out  one  volume,  accidentally,  and 
leave  it  on  the  table.  '  Why,  my  dear,  what  a  beautiful  book  ! 
Where  did  you  borrow  it  ? '  You  glance  over  the  newspaper, 


PRETENDERS.  167 

by  the  author  of  the  New  Jerusalem,  which,  as 
John  Cuthbertson,  the  smith,  said  of  the  minister's 
sermon,  '  must  be  neat  wark.'  The  loyal  poems  by 
N.  T.  are  probably  by  poor  Nahum  Tate,  who  was 
associated  with  Brady  in  versifying  the  Psalms,  and 
more  honorably  with  Dryden  in  the  second  part 
of  Absalom  and  Achitophel.  I  never  saw  them, 
however,  but  would  give  a  guinea  or  thirty  shillings 
for  the  collection." 

with  the  quietest  tone  you  can  command  :  '  That !  oh !  that  is 
mine.  Have  you  not  seen  it  before  ?•  It  has  been  in  the  house 
these  two  months  ; '  and  you  rush  on  with  anecdote  and  inci 
dent,  and  point  out  the  binding,  and  that  peculiar  trick  of  gild 
ing,  and  everything  else  you  can  think  of;  but  it  all  will  not  do  ; 
you  cannot  rub  out  that  roguish,  arithmetical  smile.  People 
may  talk  about  the  equality  of  the  sexes  !  They  are  not  equal. 
The  silent  smile  of  a  sensible,  loving  woman,  will  vanquish  ten 
men.  Of  course  you  repent,  and  in  time  form  a  habit  of  repent 
ing. 

"Another  method  which  will  be  found  peculiarly  effective,  is, 
to  make  a  present  of  some  fine  work,  to  your  wife.  Of  course, 
whether  she  or  you  have  the  name  of  buying  it,  it  will  go  into 
your  collection  and  be  yours  to  all  intents  and  purposes.  But, 
it  stops  remark  in  the  presentation.  A  wife  could  not  reprove 
you  for  so  kindly  thinking  of  her.  No  matter  what  she  suspects, 
she  will  say  nothing.  And  then  if  there  are  three  or  four  more 
works,  which  have  come  home  with  the  gift-book — they  will 
pass  through  the  favor  of  the  other. 

"  These  are  pleasures  denied  to  wealth  and  old  bachelors.  In 
deed,  one  cannot  imagine  the  peculiar  pleasure  of  buying  books, 
if  one  is  rich  and  stupid.  There  must  be  some  pleasure,  or  so 
many  would  not  do  it.  But  the  full  flavor,  the  whole  relish  of 
delight  only  comes  to  those  who  are  so  poor  that  they  must  en 
gineer  for  every  book.  They  set  down  before  them,  and  besiege 
them.  They  are  captured.  Each  book  has  a  secret  history  of 
ways  and  means.  It  reminds  you  of  subtle  devices  by  which 
you  insured  and  made  it  yours,  in  spite  of  poverty  !  "  — W.J 


168  HIS  FUNCTIONS. 

One  of  the  reasons  why  Dibdin's  expatiations 
among  rare  and  valuable  volumes  are,  after  all,  so 
devoid  of  interest,  is,  that  he  occupied  himself  in  a 
great  measure  in  catering  for  men  with  measureless 
purses.  Hence  there  is  throughout  too  exact  an 
estimate  of  everything  by  what  it  is  worth  in  ster 
ling  cash,  with  a  contempt  for  small  things,  which 
has  an  unpleasant  odor  of  plush  and  shoulder-knot 
about  it.  Compared  with  dear  old  Monkbarns  and 
his  prowlings  among  the  stalls,  the  narratives  of  the 
Boccaccio  of  the  book-trade  are  like  the  account  of 
a  journey  that  might  be  written  from  the  rumble 
of  the  travelling  chariot,  when  compared  with  the 
adventurous  narrative  of  the  pedestrian  or  of  the 
wanderer  in  the  far  east.  Everything  is  too  com 
fortable,  luxurious,  and  easy  —  russia,  morocco,  em 
bossing,  marbling,  gilding  —  all  crowding  on  one 
another,  till  one  feels  suffocated  with  riches.  There 
is  a  feeling,  at  the  same  time,  of  the  utter  useless 
pomp  of  the  whole  thing.  Books,  in  the  condition 
in  which  he  generally  describes  them,  are  no  more 
fitted  for  use  and  consultation  than  white  kids  and 
silk  stockings  are  for  hard  work.  Books  should  be 
used  decently  and  respectfully  —  reverently,  if  you 
will,  but  let  there  be  no  toleration  for  the  doctrine 
that  there  are  volumes  too  splendid  for  use,  too  fine 
almost  to  be  looked  at,  as  Brummel  said  of  some 
of  his  Dresden  china.  That  there  should  be  little 
interest  in  the  record  of  rich  men  buying  costly 
books  which  they  know  nothing  about  and  never 
become  acquainted  with,  is  an  illustration  of  a 


PRETENDERS.  169 

wholesome  truth,  pervading  all  human  endeavors 
after  happiness.  It  is  this,  that  the  active,  racy  en 
joyments  of  life  —  those  enjoyments  in  which  there 
is  also  exertion  and  achievement,  and  which  depend 
on  these  for  their  proper  relish  —  are  not  to  be 
bought  for  hard  cash.  To  have  been  to  him  the 
true  elements  of  enjoyment,  the  book-hunter's  treas 
ures  must  not  be  his  mere  property,  they  must  be 
his  achievements  —  each  one  of  them  recalling  the 
excitement  of  the  chase  and  the  happiness  of  suc 
cess.  Like  Monkbarns  with  his  Elzevirs  and  his 
bundle  of  pedler's  ballads,  he  must  have,  in  com 
mon  with  all  hunters,  a  touch  of  the  competitive 
in  his  nature,  and  be  able  to  take  the  measure  of  a 
rival,  —  as  Monkbarns  magnanimously  takes  that 
of  Davie  Wilson,  "  commonly  called  Snuffy  Davie, 
from  his  inveterate  addiction  to  black  rappee,  who 
was  the  very  prince  of  scouts  for  searching  blind 
alleys,  cellars,  and  stalls,  for  rare  volumes.  He  had 
the  scent  of  a  slow-hound,  sir,  and  the  snap  of  a 
bull-dog.  He  would  detect  you  an  old  black-letter 
ballad  among  the  leaves  of  a  law-paper,  and  find 
an  editio  princeps  under  the  mask  of  a  school  Cor- 
derius." 

In  pursuing  the  chase  in  this  spirit,  the  sports 
man  is  by  no  means  precluded  from  indulgence  in 
the  adventitious  specialties  that  delight  the  com 
monest  bibliomaniac.  There  is  a  good  deal  more 
in  many  of  them  than  the  first  thought  discloses. 
An  "editio  princeps"  is  not  a  mere  toy  —  it  has 
something  in  it  that  may  purchase  the  attention 


170  HIS  FUNCTIONS. 

even  of  a  thinking  man.  In  the  first  place,  it  is 
a  very  old  commodity  —  about  four  hundred  years 
of  age.  If  you  look  around  you  in  the  world  you 
will  see  very  few  movables  coeval  with  it.  No 
doubt  there  are  wonderfully  ancient  things  shown 
to  travellers,  —  as  in  Glammis  Castle  you  may  see 
the  identical  four-posted  bedstead  —  a  very  credita 
ble  piece  of  cabinetmakery  —  in  which  King  Mal 
colm  was  murdered  a  thousand  years  ago.  But 
genuine  articles  of  furniture  so  old  as  the  editio 
princeps  are  very  rare.  If  we  should  highly  es 
teem  a  poker,  a  stool,  a  drinking-can,  of  that  age, 
is  there  not  something  worthy  of  observance,  as 
indicating  the  social  condition  of  the  age,  in  those 
venerable  pages,  made  to  look  as  like  the  hand 
writing  of  their  day  as  possible,  with  their  deco 
rated  capitals,  all  squeezed  between  two  solid 
planks  of  oak,  covered  with  richly  embossed  hog- 
skin,  which  can  be  clinched  together  by  means  of 
massive  decorated  clasps  ?  And  shall  we  not  ad 
mit  it  to  a  higher  place  in  our  reverence  than  some 
mere  item  of  household  convenience,  when  we  re 
flect  that  it  is  the  very  form  in  which  some  great 
ruling  intellect,  resuscitated  from  long  interment, 
burst  upon  the  dazzled  eyes  of  Europe  and  dis 
played  the  fulness  of  its  face  ? 


CREATION  OF  LIBRARIES. 


fjts  2lcl)imnunt0  in  tlje  drwtion  of  Cibraric0. 

O  much,  then,  for  the  benefit  which  the 
class  to  whom  these  pages  are  devoted 
derive  to  themselves  from  their  peculiar 
pursuit.  Let  us  now  turn  to  the  far  more 
remarkable  phenomena,  in  which  these  separate 
and  perhaps  selfish  pursuers  of  their  own  instincts 
and  objects  are  found  to  concur  in  bringing  out 
a  great  influence  upon  the  intellectual  destinies 
of  mankind.  It  is  said  of  Brindley,  the  great 
canal  engineer,  that,  —  when  a  member  of  a  com 
mittee,  where  he  was  under  examination,  a  little 
provoked  or  amused  by  his  entire  devotion  to 
canals,  asked  him  if  he  thought  there  was  any 
use  of  rivers, — he  promptly  answered,  "Yes,  to 
feed  navigable  canals."  So,  if  there  be  no  other 
respectable  function  in  life  fulfilled  by  the  book- 
hunter,  I  would  stand  up  for  the  proposition  that 
he  is  the  feeder,  provided  by  nature,  for  the  pres 
ervation  of  literature  from  age  to  age,  by  the  ac 
cumulation  and  preservation  of  libraries,  public  or 
private.  It  will  require  perhaps  a  little  circum 
locutory  exposition  to  show  this,  but  here  it  is. 

A  great  library  cannot  be  constructed  —  it  is 
the  growth  of  ages.  You  may  buy  books  at  any 
time  with  money,  but  you  cannot  make  a  library 
like  one  that  has  been  a  century  or  two  a-growing, 
though  you  had  the  whole  national  debt  to  do  it 


172  HIS  FUNCTIONS. 

with.  I  remember  once  how  an  extensive  pub 
lisher,  speaking  of  the  rapid  strides  which  liter 
ature  had  made  of  late  years,  and  referring  to  a 
certain  old  public  library,  celebrated  for  its  afflu 
ence  in  the  fathers,  the  civilians,  and  the  medieval 
chroniclers,  stated  how  he  had  himself  freighted 
for  exportation,  within  the  past  month,  as  many 
books  as  that  whole  library  consisted  of.  This 
was  likely  enough  to  be  true,  but  the  two  collec 
tions  were  very  different  from  each  other.  The 
cargoes  of  books  were  probably  thousands  of  cop 
ies  of  some  few  popular  selling  works.  They 
might  be  a  powerful  illustration  of  the  diffusion 
of  knowledge,  but  what  they  were  compared  with 
was  its  concentration.  Had  all  the  paper  of  which 
these  cargoes  consisted  been  bank-notes,  they  would 
not  have  enabled  their  owner  to  create  a  duplicate 
of  the  old  library,  rich  in  the  fathers,  the  civilians, 
and  the  medieval  chroniclers. 

This  impossibility  of  improvising  libraries  is  re 
ally  an  important  and  curious  thing  ;  and  since  it 
is  apt  to  be  overlooked,  owing  to  the  facility  of 
buying  books,  in  quantities  generally  far  beyond  the 
available  means  of  any  ordinary  buyer,  it  seems 
worthy  of  some  special  consideration.  A  man 
who  sets  to  form  a  library  will  go  on  swimmingly 
for  a  short  way.  He  will  easily  get  Tennyson's 
Poems  —  Macaulay's  and  Alison's  Histories  —  the 
Encyclopaedia  Britannica  —  Buckle  on  Civilization 
—  all  the  books  "  in  print,"  as  it  is  termed.  Nay, 
he  will  find  no  difficulty  in  procuring  copies  of 


CREATION  OF  LIBRARIES.  173 

others  which  may  not  happen  to  be  on  the  shelves 
of  the  publisher  or  of  the  retailer  of  new  books. 
Of  Voltaire's  works  —  a  little  library  in  itself — 
he  will  get  a  copy  at  his  call  in  London,  if  he  has 
not  set  his  mind  on  some  special  edition.  So  of 
Scott's  edition  of  Swift  or  Diyclen,  Crocker's  edi 
tion  of  BoswelPs  Johnson,  and  the  like.  One  can 
scarcely  suppose  a  juncture  in  which  any  of  these 
cannot  be  found  through  the  electric  chain  of 
communication  established  by  the  book  trade.  Of 
Gibbon's  and  Hume's  Histories  —  Jeremy  Taylor's 
works  —  Bossuet's  Universal  History,  and  the  like, 
copies  abound  everywhere.  Go  back  a  little,  and 
ask  for  Rennet's  Collection  of  the  Historians  — 
Echard's  History,  Bayle,  Moreri,  or  Father  Dan 
iel's  History  of  France,  you  cannot  be  so  certain 
of  immediately  obtaining  your  object,  but  you 
will  get  the  book  in  the  end  —  no  doubt  about 
that.1 

Everything  has  its  caprices,  and  there  are  some 
books  which  might  be  expected  to  be  equally  shy, 
but  in  reality,  by  some  inexplicable  fatality,  are  as 
plentiful  as  blackberries  ;  such,  for  instance,  are 

1  [The  assertion  is  true  with  regard  to  much  scarcer  books  than 
those  named  by  the  author  ;  although  not,  of  course,  with  regard 
to  those  which  may  justly  be  called  rare.  I  heard  a  very  thor 
oughly  informed  and  observant  bookseller  say,  (he  has  too  much 
sense,  should  he  see  these  lines,  to  wish  that  he  had  been  called  a 
bibliopole ;  and,  by  the  way,  he  is  capable  of  instructing  most 
of  his  customers,)  that  every  book  except  those  of  which  all 
the  copies  were  known  to  be  in  certain  great  collections,  turned 
up  for  sale  once  in  five  years.  My  own  observation  and  experi 
ence  lead  me  to  think  that  this  is  very  near  the  truth.  And  so, 


174  HIS  FUNCTIONS. 

Famianus  Strada's  History  of  the  Dutch  War  of 
Independence  —  one  of  the  most  brilliant  works 
ever  written,  and  in  the  very  best  Latin  after  Bu 
chanan's.  There  is  Buchanan's  own  history,  very 
common  even  in  the  shape  of  the  early  Scotch  edi 
tion  of  1582,  which  is  a  highly  favorable  specimen 
of  Arbuthnot's  printing.  Then  there  are  Barclay's 
Argenis,  and  Raynal's  Philosophical  History  of  the 
East  and  West  Indies,  without  which  no  book-stall 
is  to  be  considered  complete,  and  which  seem  to  be 
possessed  of  a  supernatural  power  of  resistance  to 
the  elements,  since,  month  after  month,  in  fair 
weather  or  foul,  they  are  to  be  seen  at  their  posts 
dry  or  dripping. 

So  the  collector  goes  on,  till  he  perhaps  collects 
some  five  thousand  volumes  or  so  of  select  works. 
If  he  is  miscellaneous  in  his  taste,  he  may  get  on 
pretty  comfortably  to  ten  or  fifteen  thousand,  and 
then  his  troubles  will  arise.  He  has  easily  got 
Baker's  and  Froissart's  and  Monstrelet's  Chronicles, 
because  there  are  modern  reprints  of  them  in  the 
market.1  But  if  he  wrant  Cooper's  Chronicle,  he 

afflicted  book-hunter,  when  you  see  the  idol  of  your  longings 
snatched  away  by  another  of  your  species,  more  reckless  or 
more  pecunious  than  you,  grieve  not  as  those  that  are  with 
out  hope.  You  will  have  another  chance  in  five  years.  Though 
candor  compels  me  to  confess  that  when  that  wearily  expected 
moment  arrives  there  will  appear  at  least  four  of  those  who  like 
you  were  disappointed  ;  and  in  the  lapse  of  five  years  they  will 
have  added  to  themselves  at  least  five  other  like  marplots,  worse 
than  themselves.  Such  are  the  trials  of  your  calling.  Bear 
them  witli  what  strength  and  grace  you  may.  —  W.] 
1  [A  lady  who  sometimes  does  me  the  honor  to  look  over  my 


CREATION  OF  LIBRARIES.  175 

may  have  to  wait  for  it,  since  its  latest  form  is  still 
the  black-letter.  True,  I  did  pick  up  a  copy  lately, 
at  Braidwood's,  for  half-a-guinea,  but  that  was  a 
catch  —  it  might  have  caused  the  search  of  a  life 
time.  Still  more  hopeless  it  is  when  the  collector's 
ambition  extends  to  The  Ladder  of  Perfection  of 
Winkin  de  Worde,  or  to  his  King  Rycharde  Cure 
de  Lion,  whereof  it  is  reported  in  the  Repertorium 
Bibliographicum,  that  "  an  imperfect  copy,  wanting 
one  leaf,  was  sold  by  auction  at  Mr.  Evans's,  in 
June  1817,  to  Mr.  Watson  Taylor  for  <£40  19s." 
"  Woe  betide,"  says  Dibdin,  "  the  young  biblioma 
niac  who  sets  his  heart  upon  Breton's  Flourish  upon 
Fancie  and  Pleasant  Toyes  of  an  Idle  Head,  155T, 
4to  ;  or  Workes  of  a  Young  Wyt  trussed  up  with 
a  Fardell  of  Pretty  Fancies  ! !  Threescore  guineas 
shall  hardly  fetch  these  black-letter  rarities  from  the 
pigeon-holes  of  Mr.  Thorpe.  I  lack  courage  to  add 
the  prices  for  which  these  copies  sold."  But  he  has 
some  comfort  reserved  for  the  hungry  collector,  in 
the  intimation  that  The  Ravisht  Soul  and  the 
Blessed  Weaper,  by  the  same  author,  may  be  had 

shoulder,  here  laughed  with  scorn.  "  Call  a  man  a  collector,  or 
a  book-hunter,  who  will  buy  a  reprint  when  the  antiquated  orig 
inal  is  to  be  had !  Why,  a  reprint  isn't  dirty  ;  it  doesn't  smell 
badly  ;  it  isn't  tattered  and  torn ;  it  doesn't  need  mending  and 
rebinding  to  keep  it  from  tumbling  to  pieces  ;  it  has  little  chance 
of  harboring  unnamable  creeping  things,  which  Noah  might 
as  well  have  kept  out  of  the  ark.  Why,  a  reprint  can  be  read 
comfortably,  and  by  anybody  !  Reprints  !  The  author  must  be 
mad  ! "  Upon  what  observation  any  woman  could  have  founded 
such  extraordinary  remarks,  the  reader  is  quite  as  well  able  to 
judge  as  the  writer.  —  W.j 


17(5  HIS  FUNCTIONS. 

for  X15.1  It  creates  a  thrilling  interest  to  know, 
through  the  same  distinguished  authority,  that  the 
Heber  sale  must  have  again  let  loose  upon  the 
world  "  A  merry  gest  and  a  true,  howe  John  Flyn- 
ter  made  his  Testament,"  concerning  which  we  are 
told  with  appropriate  solemnity  and  pathos,  that 
"  Julian  Notary  is  the  printer  of  this  inestimably 
precious  volume,  and  Mr.  Heber  is  the  thrice- 
blessed  owner  of  the  copy  described  in  the  Typo 
graphical  Antiquities." 

Such  works  as  the  Knightly  Tale  of  Galogras, 
The  Temple  of  Glas,  Lodge's  Nettle  for  Nice  Noses, 
or  the  Book  of  Fayts  of  Armes,  by  Christene  of 
Pisa,  or  Caxton's  Pylgremage  of  the  Sowle,  or  his 
Myrrour  of  the  Worlde,  will  be  long  inquired  after 
before  they  come  to  the  market,  thoroughly  con 
tradicting  that  fundamental  principle  of  political 
economy,  that  the  supply  is  always  equal  to  the 
demand. 

He,  indeed,  who  sets  his  mind  on  the  possession 
of  any  one  of  these  rarities,  may  go  to  his  grave  a 
disappointed  man.  It  will  be  in  general  the  con 
solation  of  the  collector,  however,  that  he  is  by  no 
means  the  "  homo  unius  libri."  There  is  always 
something  or  other  turning  up  for  him,  so  long  as 
he  keeps  within  moderate  bounds.  If  he  be  rich 
and  ravenous,  however,  there  is  nothing  for  it  but 
duplicating — the  most  virulent  form  of  book  mania. 
We  have  seen  that  Heber,  whose  collection,  made 
during  his  own  lifetime,  was  on  the  scale  of  those 
1  Library  Companion,  p.  G99. 


CREATION  OF  LIBRARIES.  177 

public  libraries  which  take  generations  to  grow, 
liad,  with  all  his  wealth,  his  liberality,  and  his 
persevering  energy,  to  invest  himself  with  dupli 
cates,  triplicates  —  often  many  copies  of  the  same 
book. 

It  is  rare  that  the  private  collector  runs  himself 
absolutely  into  this  quagmire,  and  has  so  far  ex 
hausted  the  market  that  no  already  unpossessed 
volume  turns  up  in  any  part  of  the  world  to  court; 
his  eager  embraces.  The  limitation  constitutes, 
however,  a  serious  difficulty  in  the  way  of  rapidly 
creating  great  public  libraries.  We  would  obtain 
the  best  testimony  to  this  difficulty  in  America, 
were  our  brethren  there  in  a  condition  to  speak  or 
think  of  so  peaceful  a  pursuit  as  library-making.1 

1  [In  this  kindly  allusion  to  his  brethren  in  this  country,  the 
author  makes  a  mistake,  natural  enough  in  one  who  has  not 
lived  here  a  long  while.  That  so  peaceful  a  pursuit  as  library- 
making  can  be  thought  of  here,  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  at  this 
very  time  the  annual  Book  Trade  Sale  is  going  on  in  New  York 
from  a  catalogue  of  430  pages,  and  with  very  large  attendance 
and  lively  bidding.  The  very  reprinting  of  this  book  about 
library -making,  of  which,  in  spite  of  the  specialty  of  its  subject, 
there  will  be  three  times  as  many  sold  here  as  in  Great  Britain, 
is  in  itself  evidence  to  the  same  purpose.  It  would  probably  be 
impossible  to  make  the  author  or  any  of  his  countrymen  believe 
that  at  the  present  time,  and  for  a  year  and  a  half  past,  New  York, 
Boston,  Philadelphia,  Baltimore,  Cincinnati,  and,  recently,  even 
New  Orleans,  are  and  have  been  as  busy  and  thriving,  as  orderly, 
and  as  free  from  violence  as  London,  Liverpool,  or  Edinburgh  ; 
and,  as  the  police-records  and  the  newspapers  of  both  countries 
show,  far  freer  than  the  former  city  from  robbery  and  theft.  If 
it  be  answered  that  all  the  robbers  and  thieves  have  gone  into 
the  army,  I  deny  it ;  some  of  them  have  gone  into  business  as 
contractors,  which  is  their  way  in  all  countries.  In  the  next 
12 


178  HIS  FUNCTIONS. 

In  the  normal  condition  of  society  there  —  some 
thing  like  that  of  Holland  in  the  seventeenth  cen 
tury —  there  are  powerful  elements  for  the  promo 
tion  of  art  and  letters,  when  wealth  gives  the  means 
and  civilization  the  desire  to  promote  them.  The  very 
absence  of  feudal  institutions — the  inability  to  found 
a  baronial  house  —  turns  the  thoughts  of  the  rich 
and  liberal  to  other  foundations  calculated  to  trans 
mit  their  name  and  influence  to  posterity.  And  so 
we  have  such  bequests  as  John  Jacob  Astor's,  who 
left  four  hundred  thousand  dollars  for  a  library,1 
and  the  hundred  and  eighty  thousand  which  were 
the  nucleus  of  the  Smithsonian  Institution.  Yes  ! 
Their  efforts  in  this  direction  have  fully  earned  for 
them  their  own  peculiar  form  of  laudation  as  "  ac 
tually  equal  to  cash."  Hence,  as  the  book  trade 
and  book  buyers  know  very  well,  "  the  almighty 
dollar  "  has  been  hard  at  work,  trying  to  rear  up 
by  its  sheer  force  duplicates  of  the  old  European 

sentence  the  likening  of  the  condition  of  society  here  to  that  of 
Holland  in  the  seventeenth  century  will  raise  a  smile  on  the  lips 
of  those  who  know  anything  of  the  two  societies  which  are  com 
pared.  But  I  must  not  be  tempted  into  writing  in  these  notes  a 
book  on  "America  and  the  Americans."  —  W.J 

1  [Neither  the  author,  nor  Mr.  Edwards  in  his  book  on  libraries, 
seems  to  have  known  that  to  Mr.  John  Jacob  Astor's  noble  be 
quest,  his  son,  Mr.  William  B.  Astor,  added  some  years  ago  the 
gift,  which  needs  no  epithet,  of  other  four  hundred  thousand 
dollars.  If  the  money  which  is  given  by  men  of  wealth  in 
this  country  (that  is,  in  the  Free  States)  in  addition  to  the  am 
ple  provision  by  the  State,  for  the  education  and  culture  of 
the  whole  people,  were  summed  and  stated,  the  account  would 
be  looked  upon  out  of  the  country  with  amazement  and  incre 
dulity.—  W.] 


CREATION  OF  LIBRARIES.  179 

libraries,  containing  not  only  all  the  ordinary  stock 
books  in  the  market,  but  also  the  rarities,  and  those 
individualities  —  solitary  remaining  copies  of  im 
pressions  —  which  the  initiated  call  uniques.  It  is 
clear,  however,  that  when  there  is  but  one  copy,  it 
can  only  be  in  one  place ;  and  if  it  have  been  rooted 
for  centuries  in  the  Bodleian,  or  the  University  of 
Tubingen,  it  is  not  to  be  had  for  Harvard  or  the 
Astorian.  Dr.  Cogswell,  the  first  librarian  of  the 
Astorian,  spent  some  time  in  Europe  with  his 
princely  endowment  in  his  pocket,  and  showed 
himself  a  judicious,  active,  and  formidable  sports 
man  in  the  book-hunting  world.  Whenever,  from 
private  collections,  or  the  breaking-up  of  public  in 
stitutions,  rarities  got  abroad  into  the  open  market, 
the  collectors  of  the  old  country  found  that  they 
had  a  resolute  competitor  to  deal  with  —  almost,  it 
might  be  said,  a  desperate  one  —  since  he  was  in  a 
manner  the  representative  of  a  nation  using  power 
ful  efforts  to  get  possession  of  a  share  of  the  literary 
treasures  of  the  Old  World. 

In  the  case  of  a  book,  for  instance,  of  which  half 
a  dozen  copies  might  be  known  to  exist,  the  comba 
tants  before  the  auctioneer  would  be,  on  the  one  side, 
many  an  ambitious  collector  desiring  to  belong  to 
the  fortunate  circle  already  in  possession  of  such  a 
treasure  ;  but  on  the  other  side  was  one  on  whose 
exertions  depended  the  question,  whether  the  book 
should  henceforth  be  part  of  the  intellectual  wealth 
of  a  great  empire,  and  should  be  accessible  for  con 
sultation  by  American  scholars  and  authors  without 


180  nis  FUNCTIONS. 

their  requiring  to  cross  the  Atlantic.  Let  us  see 
how  far,  by  a  brief  comparison,  money  has  enabled 
them  to  triumph  over  the  difficulties  of  their  posi 
tion. 

It  is  difficult  to  know  exactly  the  numerical  con 
tents  of  a  library,  as  some  people  count  by  volumes, 
and  others  by  the  separate  works,  small  or  great ; 
and  even  if  all  should  consent  to  count  by  volumes, 
the  estimate  would  not  be  precise,  for  in  some  libra 
ries  bundles  of  tracts  and  other  small  works  are 
massed  in  plethoric  volumes  for  economy,  while  in 
affluent  institutions  every  collection  of  leaves  put 
under  the  command  of  a  separate  title-page  is  sepa 
rately  bound  in  cloth,  calf,  or  morocco,  according  to 
its  rank.  The  Imperial  Library  at  Paris  is  com 
puted  to  contain  above  eight  hundred  thousand  vol 
umes  ;  the  Astorian  boasts  of  approaching  a  hun 
dred  thousand : l  the  next  libraries  in  size  in  Amer 
ica  are  the  Harvard,  with  from  eighty  thousand  to 
ninety  thousand  ;  the  Library  of  Congress,  which 
has  from  sixty  thousand  to  seventy  thousand  ;  and 
the  Boston  Athena3um,  which  has  about  sixty  thou 
sand. 

There  are  many  of  smaller  size.  In  fact,  there 
is  probably  no  country  so  well  stocked  as  the  States 
with  libraries  of  from  ten  thousand  to  twenty  thou 
sand  volumes  ;  the  evidence  that  they  have  bought 
what  was  to  be  bought,  and  have  done  all  that  a 
new  people  can  to  participate  in  the  long-hoarded 

1  [The  Astor  Librarj  contains  more  than  one  hundred  and 
twenty-five  thousand  volumes.  —  W.] 


CREATION  OF  LIBRARIES.  181 

treasures  of  literature  which  it  is  the  privilege  of 
the  Old  World  to  possess.  I  know  that,  especially 
in  the  instance  of  the  Astorian  Library,  the  selec 
tions  of  books  have  been  made  with  great  judg 
ment,  and  that,  after  the  boundaries  of  the  common 
crowded  market  were  passed,  and  individual  rari 
ties  had  to  be  stalked  in  distant  hunting-grounds, 
innate  literary  value  was  still  held  an  object  more 
important  than  mere  abstract  rarity,  and,  as  the 
more  worthy  quality  of  the  two,  that  on  which  the 
buying  power  available  to  the  emissary  was  brought 
to  bear. 

The  zeal  and  wealth  which  the  citizens  of  the 
States  have  thrown  into  the  limited  field  from  which 
a  library  can  be  rapidly  reaped,  are  manifested  in 
the  size  and  value  of  their  private  collections.  A 
volume,  called  The  Private  Libraries  of  New  York, 
by  James  Wynne,  M.  D.,  affords  interesting  evi 
dence  of  this  phenomenon.  It  is  printed  on  large, 
thick  paper,  after  the  most  luxurious  fashion  of  our 
book  clubs,  apparently  for  private  distribution.1  The 
author  states,  however,  that  "  the  greater  part  of 
the  sketches  of  private  libraries  to  be  found  in  this 
volume,  were  prepared  for  and  published  in  the 
Evening  Post  about  two  years  since.  Their  origin 
is  due  to  a  request  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Bigelow,  one 
of  the  editors  of  the  Post,  to  the  writer,  to  examine 
and  sketch  the  more  prominent  private  collections 
of  books  in  New  York." 

1  [This  is  the  first  of  many  erroneous  conclusions  with  regard 
to  the  book  in  question.  It  was  published,  though  subscriptions 
for  a  certain  number  of  copies  were  first  obtained.  —  W.] 


182  SIS  FUNCTIONS. 

Such  an  undertaking  reveals,  to  us  of  the  old 
country,  a  very  singular  social  condition.  With  us, 
the  class  who  may  be  thus  offered  up  to  the  mar 
tyrdom  of  publicity  is  limited.  The  owners  of 
great  houses  and  great  collections  are  doomed  to 
share  them  with  the  public,  and  if  they  would  fre 
quent  their  own  establishments,  must  be  content  to 
do  so  in  the  capacity  of  librarians  or  showmen,  for 
the  benefit  of  their  numerous  and  uninvited  visitors. 
They  generally,  with  wise  resignation,  bow  to  the 
sacrifice,  and,  abandoning  all  connection  with  their 
treasures,  dedicate  them  to  the  people  —  nor,  as 
their  affluence  is  generally  sufficient  to  surround 
them  with  an  abundance  of  other  enjoyments,  are 
they  an  object  of  much  pity. 

But  that  the  privacy  of  our  ordinary  wealthy  and 
middle  classes  should  be  invaded  in  a  similar  shape, 
is  an  idea  that  could  not  set  abroad  without  creat- 

O 

ing  sensations  of  the  most  lively  horror.  They 
manage  these  things  differently  across  the  Atlantic, 
and  so  here  we  have  "  over  "  fifty  gentlemen's  pri 
vate  collections  ransacked  and  anatomized.  If  they 
like  it,  we  have  no  reason  to  complain,  but  rather 
have  occasion  to  rejoice  in  the  valuable  and  inter 
esting  result.1 

1  [The  "very  singular  social  condition  "  revealed  by  the  pub 
lication  of  "  The  Private  Libraries  of  New  York  "  is  merely  one 
in  which  there  is  a  general  disposition  to  be  obliging,  and  com 
municative  of  information  which  may  be  useful  or  agreeable,  and 
also  to  do  anything  to  contribute  to  the  honor  of  the  community  of 
which  one  is  a  member.  Personal  privacy  is,  I  suppose,  one  of 
the  very  first  needs  to  the  comfort  of  a  gentleman;  —  at  least  of 


CREATION  OF  LIBRARIES.  183 

It  is  quite  natural  that  their  ways  of  esteeming  a 
collection  should  not  be  as  our  ways.     There  is  a 

our  race;  for  with  the  Latin  and  the  Oriental  races  it  appears  to 
be  not  so  much  sought  for.  Certainly  it  could  nowhere  be  more 
jealously  guarded  than  in  this  country,  where  intrusion  into  the 
penetralia  of  a  man's  home,  be  it  high  or  humble,  is  an  offence 
which,  among  people  of  any  decent  sort,  not  to  say  among  the 
well-bred  or  the  cultivated,  is  regarded  as  the  most  unpardon 
able,  as  it  surely  is  the  rarest,  of  social  misdemeanors.  Indeed, 
the  partial  publicity  of  the  daily  life  of  people  of  rank  in  Eu 
rope  is  looked  upon  here  as  part  of  a  dear  price  paid  for  their 
privileges.  But  what  invasion  of  privacy  is  there  in  having  a 
few  hundred  people  told  in  a  nicely  printed  book  (what  many 
of  them  doubtless  knew  before)  that  in  a  certain  room,  their 
more  knowledge  of  which  depends  absolutely  on  their  personal 
relations  with  you,  you  have  a  fine  Caxton  or  Aldus  or  Pannartz, 
or  five  hundred  or  five  thousand  other  good  books  which  it  will 
gratify  them  to  know  are  in  their  country  and  in  their  town,  and 
which  you  will  gladly  let  any  properly  introduced  person,  who 
has  occasion  to  do  so,  examine  to  his  heart's  content  ?  It  does 
not  draw  a  bolt,  or  lift  a  latch,  or  raise  a  curtain  in  your  house  ; 
or  even  relax  for  a  moment  those  stronger,  though  invisible, 
barriers  which  guard  the  approaches  tj  your  hearth-stone.  As 
our  author  says,  and  as  we  all  know,  in  Great  Britain  "the 
owners  of  great  houses  and  great  collections  are  doomed  to 
share  them  with  the  public."  But  great  is  a  comparative 
term.  Great  collections  are  great  because  most  others  around 
them  are  smaller  than  they  are.  Now  if  the  collections  de 
scribed  in  "  The  Private  Libraries  of  New  York  "  are  the  larg 
est  and  most  considerable  in  that  city,  of  which  the  mere  fact 
that  they  were  selected  for  description  is  evidence,  it  is  somewhat 
puzzling  to  discover  the  difference  of  social  etiquette  and  indi 
vidual  feeling  between  New  York  and  London  which  the  pub 
lication  of  that  book  indicates.  True,  none  of  the  possessors 
of  those  collections  were  dukes,  marquises,  earls,  viscounts, 
barons,  or  even  baronets.  Those  varieties  of  our  race  are 
not  produced  in  this  country.  If  it  be  proper  to  describe 
the  collections  of  such  people  only,  we  are  in  this  respect 
in  the  condition  of  the  cherub  who  was  asked  to  sit  down  — 


184  HIS  FUNCTIONS. 

story  of  a  Cockney  auctioneer,  who  had  a  location 
in  the  back  settlements  to  dispose  of,  advertising 
that  it  was  "  almost  entirely  covered  with  fine  old 
timber."  To  many  there  would  appear  to  be  an 
equal  degree  of  verdant  simplicity  in  mentioning 
among  the  specialties  and  distinguishing  features 
of  a  collection  —  the  Biographia  and  Encyclopaedia 
Britannica,  Lowndes's  Manual,  The  Quarterly  and 

we  have  not  the  wherewith.  And  as  to  mere  publicity  of 
name,  it  so  happens  that  their  positions  in  the  church,  in  law, 
in  science,  letters,  or  society,  had  made  nearly  all  of  Dr. 
Wynne's  subjects  almost  as  used  to  being  talked  about,  and 
having  their  "  names  spelled  wrong  in  the  newspapers,"  as  the 
Old  World  possessors  of  the  great  houses  and  the  great  collections 
aforesaid.  The  few  who  were  not  in  that  category  consented 
for  good-fellowship,  and  to  be  obliging.  And  perhaps  from  van 
ity  ?  No.  For  the  truth  is  that  in  most  instances  there  was  a 
great  reluctance,  sometimes  long  persisted  in,  to  consent  to  the 
publication;  but  a  feeling  that  it  would  seem  churlish  or  over- 
modest  to  refuse,  when  others  whose  collections  were  of  no  more 
importance  had  consented,  finally  overcame  this  obstacle.  But 
a  certain  pride  did  enter  into  the  motives  which  produced  "  The 
Private  Libraries."  It  was  municipal  pride,  however,  not  per 
sonal.  The  libraries  of  New  York  probably  would  never  have 
been  described  had  not  an  account  of  those  of  Boston  been  pre 
viously  given  to  the  public.  This  was  unwise  on  the  part  of 
the  men  of  Athens.  It  opened  a  seam  in  their  armor.  Because, 
.although  no  man  in  his  senses  would  dream  of  denying  the 
•claim  of  the  three-hilled  city  to  be  either  the  Modern  Athens 
or  the  Hub  of  the  Universe,  or  both,  yet  it  was  seen  that  in 
this  minor  matter  of  private  libraries  New  York  was  far  ahead. 
Thereupon  men  be^an  to  say  to  each  other,  like  Sir  Toby  Belch, 
when  Sir  Andrew  Aguecheek  discovers  his  excellence  in  capers 
and  back-tricks,  "Wherefore  are  these  things  hid?"  And  so 
they  were  revealed.  The  revelation  probably,  however,  abated 
none  of  the  Bostonian  pretension  ;  as  to  the  loftiness  of  which  a 
.Boston  man  once  met  with  this  illustration.  Passing  a  negro 


CREATION  OF  LIBRARIES.  185 

Edinburgh  Reviews,  Boyle,  Ducange,  Moreri,  Dods- 
ley's  Annual  Register,  Watt's  Bibliotheca,  and 
Diodorus  Siculus. 

The  statement  that  there  is  in  Dr.  Francis's  col 
lection  "  a  complete  set  of  the  Recueil  des  Causes 
Celebres,  collected  by  Maurice  Mejan,  in  eighteen 
volumes  —  a  scarce  and  valuable  work"  —  would 
throw  any  of  our  black-letter  knight-errants  into 

Methodist  church  one  Sunday  morning,  and  hearing  the  tre 
mendous  shouting  which  always  issues  from  those  places,  he 
entered  to  make  observation,  and  took  his  stand  just  within  the 
inner  door.  The  black  Boanerges  certainly  obeyed  the  injunc 
tion  to  cry  aloud  and  spare  not :  his  voice  was  stentorian,  his 
denunciation  tremendous.  After  listening  awhile,  the  white  critic 
became  aware  of  the  presence  of  a  black  brother,  who  had  taken 
a  place  by  his  side  unnoticed.  He  was  evidently  a  "  colored 
pusson  "  of  the  very  highest  respectability  —  his  manner  sedate 
and  soft,  his  hat  of  a  dignified  breadth  of  brim,  his  coat  a  long 
frock  ;  and  he  wore  those  two  articles  which  always  give  such 
an  irresistibly  ludicrous  appearance  to  the  negro  face  —  a  white 
cravat  and  silver  spectacles.  The  gentleman  turned  to  him,  and 
decorously  praised  the  preacher.  "  Fair,  Sar,  ve-ry  fair,"  was 
the  reply,  with  a  look  of  patronizing  approval  which  was  almost 
contemptuous.  A  decided  rebuff.  Presently  the  preacher  be 
came  more  uproarious  than  ever ;  his  voice  ran  away  with  him, 
and  his  arms  flew  like  those  of  a  windmill.  "  Now,  my  friend, 
what  do  you  think  of  that?  Perhaps  I  can't  judge;  but  it 
really  seems  to  me  as  if  he  was  laying  down  that  matter  pretty 
strongly.  See  how  he  stirs  up  the  congregation,  too."  —  "  Ve-ry 
good,  Sar;  ve-ry  good.  Man  of  talent,  Sar.  Nothing  ve-ry  re 
markable  ;  "  — and  then  glancing  over  the  rims  of  his  barnacles, 
and  with  an  exquisite  touch  of  serene  condescension  in  the  placid 
circumflexion  of  his  voice,  "  New  York  man,  Sar ;  New  York 
man."  I  am  half  inclined  to  think  that  when  "  The  Private  Li 
braries  "  appeared,  Boston  said,  in  her  heart  at  least,  and  with 
some  truth,  "Nothing  ve-ry  remarkable.  New  York  collec 
tions."—  W.] 


186  MS  FUNCTIONS. 

convulsions  of  laughter.1  There  are  also  some  in 
stances  of  perhaps  not  unnatural  confusion  between 
one  merely  local  British  celebrity  and  another,  as 
where  it  is  set  forth  that  in  Mr.  Noyes's  collection 
"  there  is  a  fine  copy  of  Sir  Robert  Walpole'l 
works,  in  five  large  quarto  volumes,  embellished 

1  [\rery  likely ;  and  the  laughter,  or  at  least  the  surprise,  at 
seeing  a  book  which  stands  here  for  weeks  and  months  on  the 
shelves  of  the  old-book  sellers,  asking  a  buyer  at  a  few  dollars, 
styled  "scarce  and  valuable,"  would  not  be  all  on  one  side  of 
the  water.  The  author  has  been  led  to  a  very  false  conclusion 
as  to  our  "  ways  of  esteeming  a  collection  "  and  our  "  inexperi 
ence  in  the  ways  of  the  craft "  as  it  is  practised  in  Europe.  A 
collection  of  books  in  New  York  or  Boston  is  judged  by  the 
Tery  same  canons  which  would  be  brought  to  the  measurement 
of  its  value  in  London  or  Paris.  The  standard  books  are  valued 
for  their  standard  value  and  their  fitness  to  supply  the  general 
wants  of  reading  people  ;  the  illustrated  books,  for  their  beauty  ; 
and  the  rare  books,  for  their  special  significance  in  the  history  of 
literature  or  printing,  and  for  their  rarity.  Dr.  Wynne  has,  with 
such  modest  candor,  disavowed,  in  his  preface,  any  "  pretensions 
to  nice  bibliographical  knowledge,"  that  he  may  well  claim  ex 
emption  from  criticism,  especially  at  the  hands  of  such  a  bibli 
ophile  as  the  author  of  this  book.  But  it  is  quite  fair  to  say 
that  in  some  of  the  articles  in  his  "Private  Libraries"  there  are 
passages  upon  bibliography  and  history  which  do  not  represent 
the  acquaintance  with  those  subjects  which  is  general  among 
the  persons  for  whom  his  very  agreeable  work  was  prepared.  It 
was  received  here  as  a  fair  and  welcome  exhibit  of  the  principal 
private  collections  of  New  York  ;  but  I  am  not  aware  that  it 
met  with  special  attention  on  bibliographic  grounds  in  any  quar 
ter  ;  except  that  envious  Boston  intensified  one  gracious  "  Ve-ry 
good  for  New  York  "  by  pointing  out,  blandly  and  briefly,  evi 
dences  of  the  lack  of  that  bibliographic  knowledge  the  posses 
sion  of  which  the  author,  with  such  creditable  frankness,  dis 
avowed.  Indeed,  "  The  Private  Libraries "  received  more 
attention  in  this  book  published  at  Edinburgh,  than  it  did  from 
the  whole  periodical  press  of  the  United  States.  —  \V.] 


CREATION  OF  LIBRARIES.  187 

with  plates."  But  under  all  this  inexperience  of 
the  ways  of  the  craft  as  it  is  cultivated  among  us, 
and  unconsciousness  of  such  small  parochial  distinc 
tions  as  may  hold  between  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  our 
Prime  Minister,  and  Horace  Walpole,  the  man  of 
letters  and  trinkets,  the  book  contains  a  quantity  of 
valuable  and  substantial  matter,  both  as  a  record  of 
rich  stores  of  learning  heaped  up  for  the  use  of  the 
scholar,  and  marvellous  varieties  to  dazzle  the  eyes 
of  the  mere  Dibdinite.  The  prevailing  feature 
throughout  is  the  lavish  costliness  and  luxury  of 
these  collections,  several  of  which  exceed  ten  thou 
sand  volumes.  Where  collections  have  grown  so 
large  that,  on  the  principles  already  explained,  their 
increase  is  impeded,  the  owner's  zeal  and  wealth  seem 
to  have  developed  themselves  in  the  lavish  enshrining 
and  decorating  of  such  things  as  were  attainable.1 

1  Take  as  a  practical  commentary  on  what  has  been  said  (p.  76) 
on  "illustrating"  books,  the  following  passage  describing  some 
of  the  specialties  of  a  collection,  the  general  features  of  which 
are  described  farther  on  :  — 

"  But  the  crowning  glory  is  a  folio  copy  of  Shakespeare,  illus 
trated  by  the  collector  himself,  with  a  prodigality  of  labor  and 
expense,  that  places  it  far  above  any  similar  work  ever  at 
tempted.  The  letterpress  of  this  great  work  is  a  choice  speci 
men  of  Nicol's  types,  and  each  play  occupies  a  separate  port 
folio.  These  are  accompanied  by  costly  engravings  of  land 
scapes,  rare  portraits,  maps,  elegantly  colored  plates  of  costumes, 
and  water-color  drawings,  executed  by  some  of  the  best  artists 
of  the  day.  Some  of  the  plays  have  over  200  folio  illustrations, 
each  of  which  is  beautifully  inlaid  or  mounted,  and  many  of  the 
engravings  are  very  valuable.  Some  of  the  landscapes,  selected 
from  the  oldest  cosmographies  known,  illustrating  the  various 
places  mentioned  in  the  pages  of  Shakespeare,  are  exceedingly 
curious  as  well  as  valuable. 


188  BIS  FUNCTIONS. 

The  descriptions  of  a  remorseless  investigator  like 
this  have  a  fresh  individuality  not  to  be  found  here, 
where  our  habitual  reserve  prevents  us  from  offer 
ing  or  enjoying  a  full,  true,  and  particular  account 
of  the  goods  of  our  neighbors,  unless  they  are 
brought  to  the  hammer,  —  and  then  they  have  lost 
half  the  charm  which  they  possessed  as  the  house 
hold  gods  of  some  one  conspicuous  by  position  or 
character,  and  are  little  more  estimable  than  other 
common  merchandise.  It  would  be  difficult  to 

"In  the  historical  plays,  when  possible,  every  character  is 
portrayed  from  authoritative  sources,  as  old  tapestries,  monu 
mental  brasses,  or  illuminated  works  of  the  age,  in  well-exe 
cuted  drawings  or  recognized  engravings.  There  are  in  this 
work  a  vast  number  of  illustrations,  in  addition  to  a  very  numer 
ous  collection  of  water-color  drawings.  In  addition  to  the 
thirty-seven  plays,  are  two  volumes  devoted  to  Shakespeare's 
life  and  times,  one  volume  of  portraits,  one  volume  devoted  to 
distinguished  Shakespearians,  one  to  poems,  and  two  to  disputed 
plays,  the  whole  embracing  a  series  of  forty-two  folio  volumes, 
and  forming,  perhaps,  the  most  remarkable  and  costly  monu 
ment,  in  this  shape,  ever  attempted  by  a  devout  worshipper  of 
the  Bard  of  Avon.  The  volume  devoted  to  Shakespeare's  por 
traits  was  purchased  by  Mr.  Burton,  at  the  sale  of  a  gentleman's 
library,  who  had  spent  many  years  in  making  the  collection,  and 
includes  various  'effigies'  unknown  to  many  laborious  collectors. 
It  contains  upwards  of  one  hundred  plates,  for  the  most  part 
proofs.  The  value  of  this  collection  may  be  estimated  by  the 
fact,  that  a  celebrated  English  collector  recently  offered  its  pos 
sessor  £60  for  this  single  volume. 

"  In  the  reading-room  directly  beneath  the  main  library,  are  a 
number  of  portfolios  of  prints  illustrative  of  the  plays  of  Shake 
speare,  of  a  size  too  large  to  be  included  in  the  illustrated  collec 
tion  just  noticed.  There  is  likewise  another  copy  of  Shake 
speare,  based  upon  Knight's  pictorial  royal  octavo,  copiously  illus 
trated  by  the  owner;  but  although  the  prints  are  numerous, 


CREATION  OF  LIBRARIES.  189 

find,  among  the  countless  books  about  books  pro 
duced  by  us  in  the  old  country,  any  in  which  the 
bent  of  individual  tastes  and  propensities  is  so  dis 
tinctly  represented  in  tangible  symbols  ;  and  the 
reality  of  the  elucidation  is  increased  by  the  sort 
of  innocent  surprise  with  which  the  historian  ap 
proaches  each  "  lot,"  evidently  as  a  first  acquaint 
ance,  about  whom  he  inquires  and  obtains  all  avail 
able  particulars,  good-humoredly  communicating 
them  in  bold  detail  to  his  reader.  Here  follows 

they  are  neither  as  costly  nor  as  rare  as  those  contained  in  the 
large  folio  copy. 

"  Among  the  curiosities  of  the  Shakespeare  collection  are  a 
number  of  copies  of  the  disputed  plays,  printed  during  his  life 
time,  with  the  name  of  Shakespeare  as  their  author.  It  is  re 
markable,  if  these  plays  were  not  at  least  revised  by  Shake 
speare,  that  no  record  of  a  contradiction  of  their  authorship  should 
be  found.  It  is  not  improbable  that  many  plays  written  by 
others  were  given  to  Shakespeare  to  perform  in  his  capacity  as 
a  theatrical  manager,  requiring  certain  alterations  in  order  to 
adapt  them  to  the  use  of  the  stage,  which  were  arranged  by  his 
cunning  and  skilful  hand,  and  these  plays  aftenvard  found  their 
way  into  print,  with  just  sufficient  of  his  emendations  to  allow 
his  authorship  of  them,  in  the  carelessness  in  which  he  held  his 
literary  fame,  to  pass  uncontradicted  by  him. 

"  There  is  a  copy  of  an  old  play  of  the  period,  with  manu 
script  annotations,  and  the  name  of  Shakespeare  written  on  the 
title  page.  It  is  either  the  veritable  signature  of  the  poet,  or  an 
admirably  imitated  forgery.  Mr.  Burton  inclined  to  the  opinion 
that  the  work  once  belonged  to  Shakespeare,  and  that  the  signa 
ture  is  genuine.  If  so,  it  is  probably  the  only  scrap  of  his  hand 
writing  on  this  continent.  This  work  is  not  included  in  the  list 
given  of  Ireland's  library,  the  contents  of  which  were  brought 
into  disrepute  by  the  remarkable  literary  forgeries  of  the  son, 
but  stands  forth  peculiar  and  unique,  and  furnishes  much  room 
for  curious  speculation." —  (148-51.) 


190  HIS  FUNCTIONS. 

a  sketch  —  and  surely  a  tempting  one  —  of  a  New 
York  interior :  — 

"  Mr.  Burton's  library  contains  nearly  sixteen 
thousand  volumes.  Its  proprietor  had  constructed 
for  its  accommodation  and  preservation  a  three- 
story  fire-proof  building,  about  thirty  feet  square, 
which  is  isolated  from  all  other  buildings,  and  is 
connected  with  his  residence  in  Hudson  Street  by 
a  conservatory  gallery.  The  chief  library-room 
occupies  the  upper  floor  of  this  building,  and  is 
about  twenty-five  feet  in  height.  Its  ceiling  pre 
sents  a  series  of  groined  rafters,  after  the  old  Eng 
lish  style,  in  the  centre  of  which  rises  a  dome-sky 
light  of  stained  glass.  The  sides  of  the  library 
are  fitted  up  with  thirty-six  oak  book-cases  of  a 
Gothic  pattern,  which  entirely  surround  it,  and 
are  nine  feet  in  height.  The  space  between  the 
ceiling  and  the  book-cases  is  filled  with  paintings, 
for  the  most  part  of  large  size,  and  said  to  be  of 
value.  Specimens  of  armor  and  busts  of  distin 
guished  authors  decorate  appropriate  compart 
ments,  and  in  a  prominent  niche,  at  the  head  of 
the  apartment,  stands  a  full-length  statue  of  Shake 
speare,  executed  by  Thorn,  in  the  same  style  as  the 
Tarn  o'  Shanter  and  Old  Mortality  groups  of  this 
Scotch  sculptor. 

"  The  great  specialty  of  the  library  is  its  Shake 
speare  collection  ;  but,  although  very  extensive  and 
valuable,  it  by  no  means  engrosses  the  entire  li 
brary,  which  contains  a  large  number  of  valuable 
works  in  several  departments  of  literature. 


CREATION  OF  LIBRARIES. 

"  The  number  of  lexicons  and  dictionaries  is 
large,  and  among  the  latter  may  be  found  all  the 
rare  old  English  works  so  valuable  for  reference. 
Three  book-cases  are  devoted  to  serials,  which  con 
tain  many  of  the  standard  reviews  and  magazines. 
One  case  is  appropriated  to  voyages  and  travels, 
in  which  are  found  many  valuable  ones.  In  an 
other  are  upwards  of  one  hundred  volumes  of 
table-talk,  and  numerous  works  on  the  fine  arts 
and  bibliography.  One  book-case  is  devoted  to 
choice  works  on  America,  among  which  is  Sebas 
tian  Munster's  Cosmographia  Totius  Orbis  Regio- 
num,  published  in  folio  at  Basle  in  1537,  which 
contains  full  notes  of  Columbus,  Vespucci,  and 
other  early  voyagers.  Another  department  con 
tains  a  curious  catalogue  of  authorities  relating  to 
Crime  and  Punishment ;  a  liberal  space  is  devoted 
to  Facetiae,  another  to  American  Poetry,  and  also 
one  to  Natural  and  Moral  Philosophy.  The  stand 
ard  works  of  Fiction,  Biography,  Theology,  and 
the  Drama,  are  all  represented. 

"  There  is  a  fair  collection  of  classical  authors, 
many  of  which  are  of  Aldine  and  Elzevir  editions. 
Among  the  rarities  in  this  department  is  a  folio 
copy  of  Plautus,  printed  at  Venice  in  1518,  and 
illustrated  with  woodcuts." 

The  author  thus  coming  upon  a  Roman  writer  of 
plays,  named  Plautus,  favors  us  with  an  account  of 
him,  which  it  is  unnecessary  to  pursue,  since  it  by 
no  means  possesses  the  interest  attached  to  his  still- 
life  sketches.  Let  us  pass  on  and  take  a  peep  at 


192  SIS  FUNCTIONS. 

the  collection  of  Chancellor  Kent,  known  in  this 
country  as  the  author  of  Kent's  Commentaries1 :  — 
"  To  a  lawyer,  the  Chancellor's  written  remarks 
on  his  books  are,  perhaps,  their  most  interesting 
feature.  He  studied  pen  in  hand,  and  all  of  his 
books  contain  his  annotations,  and  some  are  liter 
ary  curiosities.  His  edition  of  Blackstone's  Com 
mentaries  is  the  first  American  edition,  printed  in 

1  [Again  the  author  errs.  The  library  in  question  was  that 
of  the  late  Judge  Kent,  the  son  of  Chancellor  Kent.  The  library 
of  the  son  naturally  included  that  of  the  father.  It  is,  perhaps, 
too  much  to  expect  that  even  so  intelligent  and  well-informed  a 
subject  of  Her  Majesty  as  the  writer  of  this  book  should  know 
that  Chancellor  Kent  died  in  1847,  at  the  advanced  age  of  eighty- 
four  years ;  but  still  the  Chancellor  was  known  so  long  ago 
throughout  Great  Britain  as  the  author  of  Kent's  Commenta 
ries,  that  it  would  seem  as  if  a  moment's  reflection  would  have 
decided  the  question  rightly ;  although  the  article  itself  settled 
the  point  upon  the  best  authority  —  that  of  Judge  Kent  himself. 
For  there  can  be  no  impropriety  in  saying  here,  what  has  long 
been  generally  known  in  literary  circles,  that  in  the  preparation 
of  several  of  the  articles  in  "  The  Private  Libraries/'  the  author 
had  the  advantage  of  assistance  from  the  pens  of  the  owners  of 
the  collections,  and  that  in  two  or  three  instances  the  whole,  or 
nearly  the  whole,  article  was  thus  written,  subject,  of  course,  to 
his  after  supervision.  The  description  of  Judge  Kent's  library 
bears  unmistakable  marks  of  his  own  hand.  The  passage,  quoted 
by  our  author,  in  which  it  is  remarked  as  to  the  prison  and  scaf 
fold  literature,  (and,  by  the  way,  why  should  there  not  be  a  club 
—  the  Selwyn,  of  course  —  for  the  reprinting  of  this?)  that  "the 
Chancellor  is  not  responsible  for  this  part  of  the  library,  which 
owes  its  completeness  to  the  morbid  taste  of  his  successor,"  is 
one  which  Dr.  Wynne  is  too  courteous  and  too  good-natured  to 
have  written  ;  but  the  sly  humor  of  writing  it  about  himself  is 
perfectly  in  Judge  Kent's  manner.  This  library,  though  mar 
shalled  among  those  of  New  York,  was  at  Judge  Kent's  house 
at  Fishkill  Landing,  seventy-five  miles  away.  —  W.j 


CREATION  OF   LIBRARIES.  193 

Philadelphia  in  1771.  It  is  creditable  to  the  press 
of  that  time,  and  is  overlaid  with  annotations,  show 
ing  how  diligently  the  future  American  commenta 
tor  studied  the  elegant  work  of  his  English  prede 
cessor.  The  general  reader  will  find  still  more 
interest  in  the  earlier  judicial  reports  of  the  State 
of  New  York,  printed  while  he  was  on  the  bench. 
He  will  find  not  merely  legal  notes,  but  biographi 
cal  memoranda  of  many  of  the  distinguished  judges 
and  lawyers  who  lived  at  the  commencement  of 
the  century,  and  built  up  the  present  system  of 
laws. 

"  In  proceeding  from  the  legal  to  the  miscellane 
ous  part  of  the  library,  the  visitor's  attention  will, 
perhaps,  be  attracted  by  an  extensive  and  curious 
collection  of  the  records  of  criminal  law.  Not 
merely  the  English  state  trials  and  the  French 
causes  celebres  are  there,  but  the  criminal  trials 
of  Scotland  and  of  America,  and  detached  publi 
cations  of  remarkable  cases,  Newgate  Calendars, 
Malefactors'  Register,  Chronicles  of  Crime,  with 
ghastly  prints  of  Newgate  and  Old  Bailey,  with 
their  executions.  The  Chancellor  is  not  responsi 
ble  for  this  part  of  the  library,  which  owes  its  com 
pleteness  to  the  morbid  taste  of  his  successor,  who 
defends  the  collection  as  best  illustrating  the  popu 
lar  morals  and  manners  of  every  period,  and  con 
tends  that  fiction  yields  in  interest  to  the  gloomy 
dramas  of  real  life." 

The  practice  attributed  to  the  Chancellor  of  an 
notating  his  books  is  looked  on  by  collectors  as  in 

13 


194  SIS  FUNCTIONS. 

the  general  case  a  crime  which  should  be  denied 
benefit  of  clergy.  What  is  often  said,  however,  of 
other  crimes  may  be  said  of  this,  that  if  the  perpe 
trator  be  sufficiently  illustrious,  it  becomes  a  virtue. 
If  Milton,  for  instance,  had  thought  fit  to  leave  his 
autograph  annotations  on  the  first  folio  Shakespeare, 
the  offence  would  not  only  have  been  pardoned 
but  applauded,  greatly  to  the  pecuniary  benefit  of 
any  one  so  fortunate  as  to  discover  the  treasure. 
But  it  would  be  highly  dangerous  for  ordinary 
people  to  found  on  such  an  immunity.  I  remem 
ber  being  once  shown  by  an  indignant  collector  a 
set  of  utterly  and  hopelessly  destroyed  copies  of 
rare  tracts  connected  with  the  religious  disputes  of 
Queen  Elizabeth's  day,  each  inlaid  and  separately 
bound  in  a  thin  volume  in  the  finest  morocco,  with 
the  title  lengthways  along  the  back.  These  had 
been  lent  to  a  gentleman  who  deemed  himself  a 

o 

distinguished  poet,  and  he  thought  proper  to  write 
on  the  margin  the  sensations  caused  within  him  by 
the  perusal  of  some  of  the  more  striking  passages, 
certifying  the  genuineness  of  his  autograph  by  his 
signature  at  full  length  in  a  bold  distinct  hand. 
He,  worthy  man,  deemed  that  he  was  adding 
greatly  to  the  value  of  the  rarities ;  but  had  he 
beheld  the  owner's  face  on  occasion  of  the  dis 
covery,  he  would  have  been  undeceived. 

There  are  in  Dr.  Wynne's  book  descriptions,  not 
only  of  libraries  according  to  their  kind,  but  accord 
ing  to  their  stage  of  growth,  from  those  which,  as 
the  work  of  a  generation  or  two,  have  reached  from 


CREATION  OF  LIBRARIES.  195 

ten  to  fifteen  thousand,  to  the  collections  still  in 
their  youth,  such  as  Mr.  Lorimer  Graham's  of  five 
thousand  volumes,  rich  in  early  editions  of  British 
poetry,  and  doubtless,  by  this  time,  still  richer, 
since  its  owner  was  lately  here  collecting  early 
works  on  the  literature  of  Scotland,  and  other 
memorials  of  the  land  of  his  fathers.  Certainly, 
however,  the  most  interesting  of  the  whole  is  the 
library  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Magoon,  "  an  eminent  and 
popular  divine  of  the  Baptist  Church."  He  en 
tered  on  active  life  as  an  operative  bricklayer. 
There  are,  it  appears,  wall-plates  extant,  and  not 
a  few,  built  by  his  hands,  and  it  was  only  by  sav 
in  o-  the  earnings  these  brought  to  him  that  he 

o  o  o 

could  obtain  an  education.  When  an  English 
mechanic  finds  out  that  he  has  a  call  to  the  min 
istry,  we  can  easily  figure  the  grim  ignorant  fanat 
ical  ranter  that  comes  forth  as  the  result.  If  haply 
he  is  able  to  read,  his  library  will  be  a  few  lean 
sheepskin-clad  volumes,  such  as  Boston's  Crook 
in  the  Lot,  Fisher's  Marrow  of  Modern  Divinity, 
Booth's  Apples  of  Gold,  Bolton's  Saint's  Enrich 
ing  Examination,  and  Halyburton's  Great  Con 
cern.  The  bricklayer,  however,  was  endowed 
with  the  heavenly  gift  of  the  high  aesthetic,  which 
no  birth  or  breeding  can  secure,  and  threw  himself 
into  that  common  ground  where  art  and  religion 
meet  —  the  literature  of  Christian  mediaeval  art. 
Things  must,  however,  have  greatly  changed 
among  our  brethren  since  the  days  of  Cotton 
Mather,  or  even  of  Jonathan  Edwards,  when  a 


196  HIS  FUNCTIONS. 

person  in  Dr.  Magoon's  position  could  embellish 
his  private  sanctuary  in  this  fashion. 

"  The  chief  characteristic  of  the  collection  is  its 
numerous  works  on  the  history,  literature,  and 
theory  of  art  in  general,  and  of  Christian  architec 
ture  in  particular.  There  is  scarcely  a  church, 
abbey,  monastery,  college,  or  cathedral ;  or  pic 
ture,  statue,  or  illumination,  prominent  in  Chris 
tian  art,  extant  in  Italy,  Germany,  France,  or  the 
British  Islands,  that  is  not  represented  either 
by  original  drawings  or  in  some  other  graphic 
form. 

"  In  addition  to  these  works,  having  especial 
reference  to  Christian  art,  are  many  full  sets  of 
folios  depicting  the  leading  galleries  of  ancient, 
mediaeval,  and  modern  art  in  general.  Some  of 
these,  as  the  six  elephant  folios  on  the  Louvre, 
are  in  superb  bindings ;  while  many  others,  among 
which  are  the  Dresden  Gallery  and  Retzsch's  Out 
lines,  derive  an  additional  value  from  once  having 
formed  a  part  of  the  elegant  collection  of  William 
Reginald  Courtenay. 

"  But  what  renders  this  collection  particularly 
valuable,  is  its  large  number  of  original  drawings 
by  eminent  masters  which  accompany  the  written 
and  engraved  works.  Amongst  these  are  two  large 
sepia  drawings,  by  Amici,  of  the  Pantheon  and  St. 
Peter's  at  Rome.  These  drawings  were  engraved 
and  published  with  several  others  by  Ackermann. 
Both  the  originals,  and  the  engravings  executed 
from  them,  are  in  the  collection.  The  original 


CREATION  OF  LIBRARIES.  197 

view  near  the  Basilica  of  St.  Marco,  by  Samuel 
Prout,  the  engraving  of  which  is  in  Finden's  By 
ron,  and  the  interior  of  St.  Marco,  by  Luke  Price, 
the  engraving  of  which  is  in  Price's  Venice  Illus 
trated,  grace  the  collection.  There  is  likewise  a 
superb  general  view  of  Venice,  by  Wyld  ;  a  fine 
exterior  view  of  Rheims  Cathedral,  by  Buckley; 
an  exterior  view  of  St.  Peter's  at  Cat'n,  by  Charles 
Vacher ;  and  the  interior  of  St.  Germain  des  Pro's 
at  Paris,  by  Duval." 

The  early  history  of  the  American  settlements  is 
naturally  the  object  around  which  many  of  these 
collections  cluster  ;  but  the  scraps  of  this  kind  of 
literature  which  have  been  secured  have  a  sadly  im 
poverished  aspect  in  comparison  with  the  luxurious 
stores  which  American  money  has  attracted  from 
the  Old  World.1  Here  one  is  forcibly  reminded 

1  "  This  collection  [Mr.  Menzies']  contains  four  thousand 
volumes,  and  is  for  the  most  part  in  the  English  language.  Its 
chief  specialty  consists  in  works  on  American  history  and  early 
American  printed  books.  Among  the  latter  may  be  mentioned 
a  series  of  the  earliest  works  issued  from  the  press  in  New  York. 
Of  these,  is  A  Letter  of  Advice  to  a  Young  Gentleman,  by  R. 
L.,  printed  and  sold  by  William  Bradford,  in  New  York,  1696. 
Richard  IJyon,  the  author,  came  early  to  this  country,  and  offi 
ciated  as  a  private  tutor  to  a  young  English  student  at  Cam 
bridge,  to  whom  the  letter  of  advice  was  written.  It  is  undoubt 
edly  the  earliest  work  which  issued  from  the  press  in  New  York, 
and  is  so  extremely  rare,  that  it  is  questionable  whether  another 
copy  is  to  be  found  in  the  State.  There  is  a  collection  of  tracts, 
comprised  in  seven  volumes,  written  by  the  Rev.  George  Keith, 
and  published  by  Bradford,  at  New  York,  1702-4.  Keith  was 
born  in  Scotland,  and  settled  in  East  Jersey,  in  the  capacity  of 
surveyor-general,  in  1682.  The  several  tracts  in  the  collection 
are  on  religious  subjects,  and  are  controversial  in  their  char- 


198  HIS  FUNCTIONS. 

of  those  elements  in  the  old-established  libraries  of 
Europe  which  no  wealth  or  zeal  can  achieve  else 
where,  because  the  commodity  is  not  in  the  market. 

America  had  just  one  small  old  library,  and  the 
lamentation  over  the  loss  of  this  ewe-lamb  is  touch 
ing  evidence  of  her  poverty  in  such  possessions. 
The  Harvard  Library  dates  from  the  year  1638. 
In  1764  the  college  buildings  were  burned,  and 
though  books  are  not  easily  consumed,  yet  the 
small  collection  of  five  thousand  volumes  was  easily 
overwhelmed  in  the  general  ruin.  So  were  de 
stroyed  many  books  from  the  early  presses  of  the 
mother  country,  and  many  of  the  firstlings  of  the 
transatlantic  printers  ;  and  though  its  bulk  was  but 
that  of  an  ordinary  country  squire's  collection,  the 
loss  has  been  always  considered  national  and  irrep 
arable. 

It  is,  after  all,  a  rather  serious  consideration  — 
which  it  never  seems  as  yet  to  have  occurred  to  any 

acter.  As  early  specimens  of  printing,  and  as  models  of  the 
manner  in  which  the  religious  controversies  of  the  day  were 
conducted,  they  are  both  instructive  and  curious.  In  addition 
to  these  is  a  work  entitled  The  Rebuker  Rebuked,  by  Daniel 
Leeds,  1703;  A  Sermon  preached  at  Kingston,  in  Jamaica,  by 
William  Corbin,  1703  ;  The  Great  Mystery  of  Foxcraft,  by 
Daniel  Leeds,  1705;  A  Sermon  preached  at  Trinity  Church, 
in  New  York,  by  John  Sharp,  1700  ;  An  Alarm  Sounded  to  the 
Inhabitants  of  the  World,  by  Bath  Bowers,  1709 ;  and  Lex  Par- 
liamentaria,  1716.  All  the  above  works  were  printed  by  Brad 
ford,  the  earliest  New  York  publisher,  and  one  of  the  earliest 
printers  in  America.  They  constitute,  perhaps,  the  most  com 
plete  collection  in  existence  of  the  publications  of  this  early 
typographer.  The  whole  are  in  an  excellent  state  of  preser 
vation,  and  are  nearly,  if  not  quite,  unique." 


CREATION  OF  LIBRARIES.  199 

one  to  revolve — how  entirely  the  new  States  of  the 
West  and  the  South  seem  to  be  cut  off  from  the 
literary  resources  which  the  Old  World  possesses 
in  her  old  libraries.  Whatever  light  lies  hidden 
beneath  the  bushel  in  these  venerable  institutions, 
seems  forever  denied  to  the  students  and  inquirers 
of  the  new  empire  rising  in  the  antipodes,  and  con 
sequently  to  the  minds  of  the  people  at  large  who 
receive  impressions  from  students  and  inquirers. 
Books  can  be  reprinted,  it  is  true  ;  but  where  is 
the  likelihood  that  seven  hundred  thousand  old  vol 
umes  will  be  reprinted  to  put  the  Astorian  Library 
on  a  par  with  the  Imperial  ?  Well,  perhaps  some 
quick  and  cheap  way  will  be  found  of  righting  it 
all  when  we  have  got  a  tunnel  to  Australia,  and 
are  shot  through  it  by  something  only  a  shade  less 
instantaneous  than  the  electric  telegraph.1 

In  the  mean  time,  what  a  lesson  do  these  mat 
ters  impress  on  us  of  the  importance  of  preserving 

1  [These  apprehensions  of  a  narrow  literary  future  for  us  of 
the  New  World  are  entertained  in  a  truly  philosophic  and  kindly 
spirit.  But  they  are  based,  I  think,  on  an  exaggerated  estimate 
of  our  privations.  Not  that  the  author  overrates  the  value  of 
the  real  treasures  which  have  been  heaped  up  by  Time  on  the 
other  continent ;  but  that  he,  perhaps,  rates  much  as  treasure 
which  is  really  rubbish,  and  regards  it  as  more  inaccessible  to 
us  than  it  actually  is.  And  although  his  figures  are  correct,  they 
leave  a  very  false  impression.  Choosing,  very  properly,  for  his 
illustration  the  greatest  library  of  the  world,  the  Imperial  Li 
brary  at  Paris,  (poor  great  library  !  once  Royal,  then  National, 
then  Imperial,  then  Royal  again,  again  National,  and  again  Impe 
rial  ;  and  all  this  within  the  memory  of  one  man  !)  he  asks,  What 
is  the  likelihood  that  700,000  old  volumes  will  be  reprinted  to 
put  the  Astor  Library  on  a  par  with  it  ?  There  is  none.  But 


200  ffIS  FUNCTIONS. 

old  books  !  Government  and  legislation  have  done 
little,  if  anything,  in  Britain,  towards  this  object, 

let  us  see.  The  British  Ambassador  at  Paris  ascertained  in  1850 
that  the  number  of  "  printed  books  "  in  the  great  French  library 
was  700,000.  But  were  all  these  rare,  not  to  say  unique,  or 
scarce,  or  "  old  volumes,"  or  even  out  of  print  ?  No  man  who 
knows  anything  of  the  history  of  books  could  seriously  entertain 
the  question.  These  700,000  volumes,  one  half  of  which  were 
acquired  in  the  present  century,  (see  Edwards's  "Memoirs  of 
Libraries,"  Vol.  II.,  p.  281,)  represent  the  literature  of  the  vhole 
world,  from  the  invention  of  printing  to  the  year  1850.  There  are 
not  only  duplicates  and  triplicates  and  quadruplicates,  but  -whole 
editions  of  most  of  them  scattered  over  the  face  of  the  earth  ;  and 
our  full  share,  at  least,  is  in  this  country.  But  then  there  are 
uniques  and  extremely  rare  volumes,  which  can  be  found  only 
there  and  in  two  or  three  other  places?  Certainly  ;  and  many  of 
them  are  intrinsically  of  what  may  be  called  priceless  value.  But 
I  venture  the  conjecture,  that,  casting  aside  those  multitudinous 
books  which,  in  the  words  of  a  British  critic,  "are  rare  now  be 
cause  they  were  always  worthless,"  there  are  not  one  thousand 
printed  volumes  in  the  Imperial  Library,  the  Library  of  the  Brit 
ish  Museum,  and  the  Bodleian  together,  which  have  not  yet 
been  reprinted,  and  which  are  so  rare  that  we  may  not  reason 
ably  expect  to  have  a  copy  or  copies  of  them  in  this  country 
within  the  next  fifty  years.  And  as  to  the  reprinting  of  a  thou 
sand  volumes,  if  it  were  found  very  desirable  for  the  interests  of 
literature  here,  a  few  gentlemen  would  meet  together  and  settle 
that  matter  very  quickly  ;  always  supposing  that  our  friends  of 
the  Museum,  the  Bodleian,  and  the  Imperial,  did  not  refuse  per 
mission  to  a  sharing,  even  without  a  diminution,  of  their  treas 
ures.  The  great  and  ever  unapproachable  superiority  of  the 
Imperial  Library,  that  of  the  Vatican,  the  British  Museum,  and 
a  few  others  of  their  class,  is  in  their  ancient  manuscripts,  gath 
ered  from  monasteries  and  other  like  depositories  throughout 
Europe,  in  Syria,  the  Levant,  and  Egypt.  These  will  never  be 
printed  ;  and  although  it  is  possible  that  in  the  advancement 
of  art,  and  the  more  doubtful  increase  and  spread  of  international 
comity  and  fellowship  in  letters,  a  few  of  them  may  be  photo 
graphed,  still  it  seems  quite  certain  that  this  mountain  cannot 


CREATION  OF  LIBRARIES.  201 

beyond  the  separate  help  that  may  have  been  ex 
tended  to  individual  public  libraries,  and  the  Copy- 
come  to  Mahomet.  But  it  is  not  so  clear  that  Mahomet  cannot 
go  to  the  mountain.  It  would  seem  as  if  Sanscrit  were  one  of 
the  chief  among  the  fields  of  literature  from  which  we  of  the 
New  World  are  shut  out  by  our  position.  And  yet  I  have  been 
told  on  European  authority  that  the  one  man  to  whom  no  other 
oriental  scholar  can  teach  more  Sanscrit  is  native  here,  and  is 
now  living  in  New  England.  One  of  my  own  friends,  on  a  casual 
meeting,  the  first  in  two  or  three  years,  spoke  quite  slightingly 
of  studies  in  English  literature  of  the  Elizabethan  period,  which 
he  heard  I  was  pursuing.  He  thought  that  they  had  had  their 
day,  and  that  Shakespeare  was  obsolete.  "  And  what  have  you 
been  about  this  long  time  ?  "  I  asked ;  for  I  knew  that  he  was 
bookish.  "  Oh,  I've  been  giving  myself  up  heart  and  soul  to 
Coptic.  I've  been  studying  in  Paris.  I  shall  go  to  Egypt  very 
soon."  He  could  afford  it;  and  he  went  before  the  month  was 
out.  But  was  it  not  left  for  Prescott  of  Massachusetts  to  spread 
out  manuscripts  before  closed  to  the  world,  and  first  exhibit  in 
their  true  aspect  the  ambiguous  glories  of  the  reign  of  Ferdi 
nand  and  Isabella,  and  the  darker,  sterner  record  of  the  deeds 
of  Cortez  ?  Did  not  Motley  of  New  York  in  like  manner  throw 
a  flood  of  new  light  upon  the  struggles  for  liberty  in  the  Nether 
lands  ?  Has  not  the  first  truly  philosophical  history  of  the 
development  of  our  language  just  been  written  by  George  P. 
Marsh  of  Vermont,  now  United  States  Minister  at  Turin  ?  and 
is  not  the  principal  text-book  for  the  study  of  English  now  used 
in  Great  Britain  a  mere  reprint,  with  an  Introduction  and 
notes  by  the  British  editor,  of  the  same  thorough  and  thoughtful 
scholar's  course  of  lectures,  first  delivered  and  printed  in  New 
York  ?  We  do  not  boast  of  these  things,  or  of  others  of  their 
kind,  or  even  silently  over-estimate  their  importance,  which  we 
take  at  European  rating.  Yet  we  may  venture  to  ask,  Have 
British  scholars,  with  all  their  advantages  and  superiority,  ac 
complished  within  the  same  time  and  in  similar  fields,  any  tiling  so 
very  much  better  ?  It  yet  remains,  however,  that  even  if  these 
fruits  of  research  were  far  more  numerous  and  important  than 
they  are,  they  are  not  those  results  of  the  explorations  of  special 
scholarship  into  the  wilderness  of  codices  and  palimpsests,  which 


202  HIS  FUNCTIONS. 

right  Act  deposits.  Of  general  measures,  it  is 
possible  to  point  out  some  which  have  been  inju 
rious,  by  leading  to  the  dispersal  or  destruction  of 
books.  The  house  and  window  duties  have  done 
this  to  a  large  extent.  As  this  statement  may  not 
be  quite  self-evident,  a  word  in  explanation  may  be 
appropriate.  The  practice  of  the  department  hav 
ing  charge  of  the  Assessed  Taxes  has  been,  when 
any  furniture  was  left  in  an  unoccupied  house,  to 
levy  the  duty  —  to  exempt  only  houses  entirely 
empty.  It  was  a  consequence  of  this  that  when, 
by  minority,  family  decay,  or  otherwise,  a  mansion- 
house  had  to  be  shut  up,  there  was  an  inducement 
entirely  to  gut  it  of  its  contents,  including  the 
library.  The  same  cause,  by  the  way,  has  been 
more  destructive  still  to  furniture,  and  may  be  said 
to  have  lost  to  our  posterity  the  fashions  of  a  gene 
ration  or  two.  Tables,  chairs,  and  cabinets  first 
grow  unfashionable,  and  then  old  ;  in  neither  stage 
have  they  any  friends  who  will  comfort  or  support 
them  —  they  are  still  worse  off  than  books.  But 
then  comes  an  after-stage,  in  which  they  revive  as 
antiquities,  and  become  exceeding  precious.  As 
Pompeiis,  however,  are  rare  in  the  world,  the  chief 
repositories  of  antique  furniture  have  been  man- 

perlmps  were,  after  all,  what  the  author  had  specially  in  mind. 
And  of  that  work  we  shall  not  do  too  much.  If  any  one  of  us 
is  bent  upon  it,  be  sure  that  it  will  go  hard  but  he  shall  find  a 
way  of  doing  it.  Those  who  are  impelled  to  such  tasks,  because 
they  are  born  to  no  other,  will  be  put  in  the  way  of  their  desire. 
And  these  will  be  enough.  It  is  not  well  to  have  too  many 
young  men  think  Shakespeare  obsolete,  and  go  down  into  Egypt 


CREATION  OF  LIBRARIES.  203 

sions  shut  up  for  a  generation  or  two,  which,  after 
more  fashions  than  generations  have  passed  away, 
are  reopened  to  the  light  of  day,  either  in  conse 
quence  of  the  revival  of  the  fortunes  of  their  old 
possessors,  or  of  their  total  extinction  and  the  entry 
of  new  owners.  How  the  house  and  window  duties 
disturbed  this  silent  process  by  which  antiques  were 
created  is  easily  perceived. 

One  service  our  Legislature  has  done  for  the 
preservation  of  books,  in  the  copies  which  require 
to  be  deposited  under  the  Copyright  Act  at  Sta 
tioners'  Hall  for  the  privileged  libraries.  True, 
this  has  been  effected  somewhat  in  the  shape  of  a 
burden  upon  authors,  for  the  benefit  of  that  pos 
terity  which  has  done  no  more  for  them  specially 
than  it  has  for  other  people  of  the  present  genera 
tion.  But  in  its  present  modified  shape  the  burden 
should  not  be  grudged,  in  consideration  of  the  mag 
nitude  of  the  benefit  to  the  people  of  the  future  — 
a  benefit,  the  full  significance  of  which  it  probably 
requires  a  little  consideration  to  estimate.  The 
right  of  receiving  a  copy  of  every  book  from  Sta 
tioners'  Hall  has  generally  been  looked  on  as  a 
benefit  to  the  library  receiving  it.  The  benefit, 
however,  was  but  lightly  esteemed  by  some  of  these 

to  devote  themselves  heart  and  soul  to  Coptic.  The  great  mass 
of  us,  including  the  intelligent  and  the  cultivated,  can  be  better 
occupied  within  our  own  borders  in  so  living  and  laboring  as 
simple  citizens  of  the  Republic,  that  our  example  may  hasten 
the  time  when  peace,  truth,  justice,  and  good-will  shall  reign, 
and  only  they  shall  reign,  —  as  when  they  do  reign  they  must 
reign,  —  throughout  all  the  world.  —  W.] 


204  ms  FUXCTIOXS. 

institutions,  the  directors  of  which  represented  that 
they  were  thus  pretty  well  supplied  with  the  un 
salable  rubbish,  while  the  valuable  publications 
slipped  past  them  ;  and,  on  the  whole,  they  would 
sell  their  privilege  for  a  very  small  annual  sum,  to 
enable  them  to  go  into  the  market  and  buy  such 
books,  old  and  new,  as  they  might  prefer.  The 
view  adopted  by  the  law,  however,  was,  that  the 
depositing  of  these  books  created  an  obligation  if  it 
conferred  a  privilege,  the  institution  receiving  them 
having  no  right  to  part  with  them,  but  being  bound 
to  preserve  them  as  a  record  of  the  literature  of  the 
age.1 

1  I  am  not  aware  that  in  the  blue-books,  or  any  other  source 
of  public  information,  there  is  any  authenticated  statement  of 
the  quantity  of  literature  which  the  privileged  libraries  receive 
through  the  Copyright  Act.  The  information  would  afford  a 
measure  of  the  fertility  of  the  British  press.  It  is  rather  curi 
ous,  that  for  a  morsel  of  this  kind  of  ordinary  modern  statistics, 
one  must  have  recourse  to  so  scholarly  a  work  as  the  quarto  vol 
ume  of  the  P 'I'lefationes  et  Eputdce  Rditionibus  Priitcipibtu  Aucto- 
rum  Veterum  pr&positce,  curante  Beriah  Botjidd,  A.M.  The  editor 
of  that  noble  quarto  obtained  a  return  from  Mr.  Winter  Jones, 
of  the  number  of  deposits  in  the  Britisli  Museum  from  1814  to 
1860.  Counting  the  "pieces,"  as  they  are  called  —  that  is,  every 
volume,  pamphlet,  page  of  music,  and  other  publication  —  the 
total  number  received  in  1814  was  378.  It  increased  by  steady 
gradation  until  1851,  when  it  reached  9871.  It  then  got  an  im 
pulse,  from  a  determination  more  strictly  to  enforce  the  Act, 
and  next  year  the  number  rose  to  13,034,  and  in  1859  it  readied 
28,807.  In  this  great  mass,  the  number  of  books  coming  forth 
complete  in  one  volume  or  more  is  roundly  estimated  at  5000, 
but  a  quantity  of  the  separate  numbers  and  parts  which  go  to 
make  up  the  total,  are  elementary  portions  of  books,  giving 
forth  a  certain  number  of  completed  volumes  annually.  From 
the  same  authority,  it  appears  that  the  total  number  of  publica- 


CREATION  OF  LIBRARIES.  205 

If  the  rule  come  ever  to  be  thoroughly  enforced, 
it  will  then  come  to  pass  that  of  every  book  that  is 
printed  in  Britain,  good  or  bad,  five  copies  shall  be 
preserved  in  the  shelves  of  so  many  public  libraries, 
slumbering  there  in  peace,  or  tossed  about  by  im 
patient  readers,  as  the  case  may  be.  For  the  latter 
there  need  not  perhaps  be  much  anxiety ;  it  is  for 
the  sake  of  those  addicted  to  slumbering  in  peaceful 
obscurity  that  this  refuge  is  valuable.  There  is  thus 
at  least  a  remnant  saved  from  the  relentless  trunk- 
maker.  If  the  day  of  resuscitation  from  the  long 
slumber  should  arrive,  we  know  where  to  find  the 


tions  which  issued  from  the  French  press  in  1858  was  estimated 
at  13,000  ;  but  this  includes  "  sermons,  pamphlets,  plays,  pieces 
of  music,  and  engravings."  In  the  same  year  the  issues  from 
the  German  press,  Austria  not  included,  are  estimated  at  10,000, 
all  apparently  actual  volumes,  or  considerable  pamphlets.  Aus 
tria  in  1855  published  4673  volumes  and  parts.  What  a  contrast 
to  all  this  it  must  be  to  live  in  sleepy  Norway,  where  the  annual 
literary  prowess  produces  146  volumes  !  In  Holland  the  annual 
publications  approach  2000.  "  During  the  year  1854,  861  works 
in  the  Russian  language,  and  451  in  foreign  languages,  were 
printed  in  Russia ;  besides  2940  scientific  and  literary  treatises 
in  the  different  periodicals."  The  number  of  works  anywhere 
published  is,  however,  no  indication  of  the  number  of  books  put 
in  circulation,  since  some  will  have  to  be  multiplied  by  tens, 
others  by  hundreds,  and  others  by  thousands.  We  know  that 
there  is  an  immense  currency  of  literature  in  the  American 
States,  yet,  of  the  quantity  of  literature  issued  there,  the  Pub 
lishers'  Circular  for  February,  1859,  gives  the  following  meagre 
estimate  :  —  "  There  were  912  works  published  in  America  dur 
ing  1858.  Of  these  177  were  reprints  from  England,  35  were 
new  editions,  and  10  were  translations  from  the  French  or  Ger 
man.  The  new  American  works  thus  number  only  690,  and 
among  them  are  included  sermons,  pamphlets,  and  letters,  where 
as  the  reprints  are  in  most  cases  bond  Jide  books." 


206  nis  FUNCTIONS. 

book  —  in  a  privileged  library.  The  recollection 
just  now  occurs  to  me  of  a  man  of  unquestionable 
character  and  scholarship,  who  wrote  a  suitable  and 
intelligent  book  on  an  important  subject,  and  at  his 
own  expense  had  it  brought  into  the  world  by  a 
distinguished  publisher,  prudently  intimating  on 
the  title-page  that  he  reserved  the  right  of  trans 
lation.  Giving  the  work  all  due  time  to  find  its 
way,  he  called  at  the  Row,  exactly  a  year  after  the 
day  of  publication,  to  ascertain  the  result.  He 
was  presented  with  a  perfectly  succinct  account  of 
charge  and  discharge,  in  which  he  was  credited  with 
three  copies  sold.  Now,  he  knew  that  his  family 
had  bought  two  copies,  but  he  never  could  find  out 
who  it  was  that  had  bought  the  third.  The  one 
mind  into  which  his  thoughts  had  thus  passed,  re 
mained  ever  mysteriously  undiscoverable.  Whether 
or  not  he  consoled  himself  with  the  reflection  that 
what  might  have  been  diffused  over  many  was  con 
centrated  in  one,  it  is  consolatory  to  others  to  re 
flect  that  such  a  book  stands  on  record  in  the  privi 
leged  libraries,  to  come  forth  to  the  world  if  it  be 
wanted. 

Nor  is  the  resuscitation  of  a  book  unsuited  to  its 
own  age,  but  suited  to  another,  entirely  unexam 
pled.  That  beautiful  poem  called  Albania  was  re 
printed  by  Leyden,  from  a  copy  preserved  some 
where  :  so  utterly  friendless  had  it  been  in  its 
obscurity,  that  the  author's  history,  and  even  his 
name,  were  unknown  ;  and  though  it  at  once  ex 
cited  the  high  admiration  of  Scott,  no  scrap  of  in- 


CREATION  OF  LIBRARIES.  207 

telligence  concerning  it  could  be  discovered  in  any 
quarter  contemporary  with  its  first  publication. 
The  Discourse  on  Trade  by  Roger  North,  the  au 
thor  of  the  amusing  Lives  of  Lord-Keeper  Guild- 
ford  and  his  other  two  brothers,  was  lately  reprinted 
from  a  copy  in  the  British  Museum,  supposed  to  be 
the  only  one  existing.  Though  neglected  in  its 
own  day,  it  has  been  considered  worthy  of  atten 
tion  in  this,  as  promulgating  some  of  the  principles 
of  our  existing  philosophy  of  trade.  On  the  same 
principle,  some  rare  tracts  on  political  economy  and 
trade  were  lately  reprinted  by  a  munificent  noble 
man,  who  thought  the  doctrines  contained  in  them 
worthy  of  preservation  and  promulgation.  The 
Spirit  of  Despotism,  by  Vicesimus  Knox,  was  re 
printed,  at  a  time  when  its  doctrines  were  popu 
lar,  from  a  single  remaining  copy  :  the  book, 
though  instructive,  is  violent  and  declamatory,  and 
it  is  supposed  that  its  author  discouraged  or  en 
deavored  to  suppress  its  sale  after  it  was  printed.1 

In  the  public  duty  of  creating  great  libraries,  and 
generally  of  preserving  the  literature  of  the  world 
from  being  lost  to  it,  the  collector's  or  book-hunter's 
services  are  great  and  varied.  In  the  first  place, 
many  of  the  great  public  libraries  have  been  abso 
lute  donations  of  the  treasures  to  which  some  en- 

1 1  once  heard  an  odd  anecdote  about  this  book.  A  traveller 
who  had  it  in  his  luggage,  passing  the  Austrian  frontier,  was, 
much  to  his  astonishment,  allowed  to  retain  it.  To  his  equal 
astonishment,  the  book  beside  it,  being  Combe  on  the  Constitu 
tion  of  Man,  was  prohibited  —  the  word  "  constitution  "  was 
sufficient  to  condemn  this  profound  volume. 


208  BIS  FUNCTIONS. 

thusiastic  literary  sportsman  has  devoted  his  life 
and  fortune.  Its  gradual  accumulation  has  been 
the  great  solace  and  enjoyment  of  his  active  days  ; 
he  has  beheld  it,  in  his  old  age,  a  splendid  monu 
ment  of  enlightened  exertion,  and  he  resolves  that, 
when  he  can  no  longer  call  it  his  own,  it  shall 
preserve  the  relics  of  past  literature  for  ages  yet 
to  come,  and  form  a  centre  whence  scholarship 
and  intellectual  refinement  shall  diffuse  themselves 
around.  We  can  see  this  influence  in  its  most  spe 
cific  and  material  shape,  perhaps,  by  looking  round 
the  reading-room  of  the  British  Museum  —  that 
great  manufactory  of  intellectual  produce,  where 
so  many  heads  are  at  work.  The  beginning  of 
this  great  institution,  as  everybody  knows,  was  in 
the  fifty  thousand  volumes  collected  by  Sir  Hans 
Sloane  —  a  wonderful  achievement  for  a  private 
gentleman  at  the  beginning  of  the  last  century. 
When  George  III.  gave  it  the  libraries  of  the  kings 
of  England,  it  gained,  as  it  were,  a  better  start  still 
by  absorbing  collections  which  had  begun  before 
Sloane  was  born  —  those  of  Cranmer,  Prince  Hen 
ry,  and  Casaubon.  The  Ambrosian  Library  at 
Milan  was  the  private  collection  of  Cardinal  Bor- 
romeo,  bequeathed  by  him  to  the  world.  It  reached 
forty  thousand  volumes  ere  he  died,  and  these  formed 
a  library  which  had  arisen  in  free,  natural,  and  sym 
metrical  growth,  insomuch  as,  having  fed  it  during 
his  whole  life,  it  began  with  the  young  and  eco 
nomic  efforts  of  youth  and  poverty,  and  went  on 
accumulating  in  bulk  and  in  the  costliness  of  its 


CREATION  OF  LIBRARIES.  209 

contents  as  succeeding  years  brought  wealth  and 
honors  to  the  great  prelate.  What  those  merchant 
princes,  the  Medici,  did  for  the  Laurentian  Library 
at  Florence  is  part  of  history.  Old  Cosmo,  who 
had  his  mercantile  and  political  correspondents  in 
all  lands,  made  them  also  his  literary  agents,  who 
thus  sent  him  goods  too  precious  to  be  resold  even 
at  a  profit.  "  He  corresponded,"  says  Gibbon,  "  at 
once  with  Cairo  and  London,  and  a  cargo  of  Indian 
spices  and  Greek  books  were  often  imported  by  the 
same  vessel."  The  Bodleian  started  with  a  collec 
tion  which  had  cost  Sir  Thomas  Bodley,  <£10,000, 
and  it  was  augmented  from  time  to  time  by  the 
absorption  of  tributary  influxes  of  the  same  kind.1 

In  many  instances  the  collectors,  whose  stores 
have  thus  gone  to  the  public,  have  merely  followed 
their  book-hunting  propensities,  without  having  the 
merit  of  framing  the  ultimate  destiny  of  their  col 
lections,  but  in  others  the  intention  of  doing  benefit 
to  the  world  has  added  zest  and  energy  to  the  chase. 
Of  this  class  there  is  one  memorable  and  beautiful 
instance  in  Richard  of  Bury,  Bishop  of  Durham, 
who  lived  and  labored  so  early  as  the  days  of  Ed 
ward  III.,  and  has  left  an  autobiographical  sketch 
infinitely  valuable,  as  at  once  informing  us  of  the 
social  habits,  and  letting  us  into  the  very  inner  life, 
of  the  highly  endowed  student  and  the  affluent  col- 

1  The  most  complete  mass  of  information  which  we  probably 
possess  in  the  English  language  about  the  history  of  libraries, 
both  home  and  foreign,  is  in  the  two  octavos  called  Memoirs  of 
Libraries,  including  a  Handbook  of  Library  Concerns,  by  Ed 
ward  Edwards. 

14 


210  ma  FUNCTIONS. 

lector  of  the  fourteenth  century.  His  little  book, 
called  Philobiblion,  was  first  printed  at  Cologne  in 
the  fifteenth  century.  An  English  translation  of  it 
was  published  in  1832.  It  is  throughout  adorned 
with  the  gentle  and  elevated  nature  of  the  scholar, 
and  derives  a  still  nobler  lustre  from  the  beneficent 
purpose  to  which  the  author  destined  the  literary 
relics  which  it  wras  the  enjoyment  of  his  life  to  col 
lect  and  study.  Being  endowed  with  power  and 
wealth,  and  putting  to  himself  the  question,  "  What 
can  I  render  to  the  Lord  for  all  that  he  hath  con 
ferred  on  me  ?  "  he  found  an  answer  in  the  determi 
nation  of  smoothing  the  path  of  the  poor  and  ardent 
student,  by  supplying  him  with  the  means  of  study. 
"  Behold,"  he  says,  "  a  herd  of  outcasts  rather  than 
of  elect  scholars  meets  the  view  of  our  contempla 
tions,  in  which  God  the  artificer,  and  nature  his 
handmaid,  have  planted  the  roots  of  the  best  morals 
and  most  celebrated  sciences.  But  the  penury  of 
their  private  affairs  so  oppresses  them,  being  op 
posed  by  adverse  fortune,  that  the  fruitful  seeds  of 
virtue,  so  productive  in  the  unexhausted  field  of 
youth,  unmoistened  by  their  wonted  dews,  are  com 
pelled  to  wither.  Whence  it  happens,  as  Boetius 
says,  that  bright  virtue  lies  hid  in  obscurity,  and 
the  burning  lamp  is  not  put  under  a  bushel,  but  is 
utterly  extinguished  for  want  of  oil.  Thus  the 
flowery  field  in  spring  is  ploughed  up  before  har 
vest  ;  thus  wheat  gives  way  to  tares,  the  vine  de 
generates  to  woodbine,  and  the  olive  grows  wild 
and  unproductive."  Keenly  alive  to  this  want,  he 


CREATION  OF  LIBRARIES.  211 

resolved  to  devote  himself,  not  merely  to  supply  to 
the  hungry  the  necessary  food,  but  to  impart  to 
the  poor  and  ardent  scholar  the  mental  sustenance 
which  might  possibly  enable  him  to  burst  the  bonds 
of  circumstance,  and,  triumphing  over  his  sordid 
lot,  freely  communicate  to  mankind  the  blessings 
which  it  is  the  function  of  cultivated  genius  to 
distribute. 

The  Bishop  was  a  great  and  powerful  man,  for 
he  Avent  over  Europe  commissioned  as  the  spirit 
ual  adviser  of  the  great  conqueror,  Edward  III. 
Wherever  he  went  on  public  business  —  to  Rome, 
France,  or  the  other  states  of  Europe  —  "on  tedi 
ous  embassies  and  in  perilous  times,"  he  carried 
about  with  him  "  that  fondness  for  books  which 
many  waters  could  not  extinguish,"  and  gathered 
up  all  that  his  power,  his  wealth,  and  his  vigilance 
brought  within  his  reach.  In  Paris  he  becomes 
quite  ecstatic  :  "  Oh  blessed  God  of  Gods  in  Zion ! 
what  a  rush  of  the  glow  of  pleasure  rejoiced  our 
heart  as  often  as  we  visited  Paris  —  the  Paradise 
of  the  world  !  There  we  longed  to  remain,  where, 
on  account  of  the  greatness  of  our  love,  the  days 
ever  appeared  to  us  to  be  few.  There  are  delight 
ful  libraries  in  cells  redolent  of  aromatics  —  there 
flourishing  greenhouses  of  all  sorts  of  volumes  :  there 
academic  meads  trembling  with  the  earthquake  of 
Athenian  peripatetics  pacing  up  and  down  :  there 
the  promontories  of  Parnassus  and  the  porticos  of 
the  stoics." 

The  most  powerful  instrument  in  his  policy  was 


212  HIS  FUNCTIONS. 

encouraging  and  bringing  round  him  as  dependents 
and  followers,  the  members  of  the  mendicant  orders 
—  the  laborers  called  to  the  vineyard  in  the  elev 
enth  hour,  as  he  calls  them.  These  he  set  to  cater 
for  him,  and  he  triumphantly  asks,  "Among  so 
mai  y  of  the  keenest  hunters,  what  leveret  could  lie 
hid  ?  What  fry  could  evade  the  hook,  the  net,  or 
the  trawl  of  these  men  ?  From  the  body  of  divine 
law  down  to  the  latest  controversial  tract  of  the 
day,  nothing  could  escape  the  notice  of  these  scru- 
tinizers."  In  further  revelations  of  his  method  he 
savs,  "  When,  indeed,  we  happened  to  turn  aside 
to  the  towns  and  places  where  the  aforesaid  paupers 
had  convents,  we  were  not  slack  in  visiting  their 
chests  and  other  repositories  of  books  ;  for  there, 
amidst  the  deepest  poverty,  we  found  the  most  ex 
alted  riches  treasured  up  ;  there,  in  their  satchels 
and  caskets,  we  discovered  not  only  the  crumbs 
that  fell  from  the  master's  table  for  the  little  dogs, 
but,  indeed,  the  shew-bread  without  leaven  —  the 
bread  of  angels  containing  all  that  is  delectable." 
He  specially  marks  the  zeal  of  the  Dominicans  as 
preachers ;  and  in  exulting  over  his  success  in  the 
field,  he  affords  curious  glimpses  into  the  ways  of 
the  various  humble  assistants  who  were  glad  to  lend 
themselves  to  the  hobby  of  one  of  the  most  power 
ful  prelates  of  his  day.1 

i  "Indeed,  although  we  had  obtained  abundance  both  of  old 
and  new  works,  through  an  extensive  communication  with  all 
the  religious  orders,  yet  we  must  in  justice  extol  the  Preacher! 
with  a  special  commendation  in  this  respect;  for  we  found  them, 


CREATION  OF  LIBRARIES.  213 

The  manner  in  which  Robert  of  Bury  dedicated 
his  stores  to  the  intellectual  nurture  of  the  poor 

above  all  other  religious  devotees,  ungrudging  of  their  most  ac 
ceptable  communications,  and  overflowing  with  a  certain  divine 
liberality  ;  we  experienced  them  not  to  be  selfish  hoarders,  but 
meet  professors  of  enlightened  knowledge.  Besides  all  the  op 
portunities  already  touched  upon,  we  easily  acquired  the  notice 
of  the  stationers  and  librarians,  not  only  within  the  provinces  of 
our  native  soil,  but  of  those  dispersed  over  the  kingdoms  of 
France,  Germany,  and  Italy,  by  the  prevailing  power  of  money  ; 
no  distance  whatever  impeded,  no  fury  of  the  sea  deterred  them ; 
nor  was  cash  wanting  for  their  expenses,  when  they  sent  or 
brought  us  the  wished-for  books ;  for  they  knew  to  a  certainty 
that  their  hopes  reposed  in  our  bosoms  could  not  be  disappointed, 
but  ample  redemption,  with  interest,  was  secure  with  us.  Lastly, 
our  common  captivatrix  of  the  love  of  all  men  (money),  did  not 
neglect  the  rectors  of  country  schools,  nor  the  pedagogues  of 
clownish  boys,  but  rather,  when  wre  had  leisure  to  enter  their 
little  gardens  and  paddocks,  we  culled  redolent  flowers  upon  the 
surface,  and  dug  up  neglected  roots  (not,  however,  useless  to  the 
studious),  and  such  coarse  digests  of  barbarism,  as  with  the  gift 
of  eloquence  might  be  made  sanative  to  the  pectoral  arteries. 
Amongst  productions  of  this  kind,  we  found  many  most  worthy 
of  renovation,  which,  when  the  foul  rust  was  skilfully  polished 
oflf,  and  the  mask  of  old  age  removed,  deserved  to  be  once  more 
remodelled  into  comely  countenances,  and  which  we,  having 
applied  a  sufficiency  of  the  needful  means,  resuscitated  for  an 
exemplar  of  future  resurrection,  having  in  some  measure  re 
stored  them  to  renewed  soundness.  Moreover,  there  was  always 
about  us  in  our  halls  no  small  assemblage  of  antiquaries,  scribes, 
bookbinders,  correctors,  illuminators,  and,  generally,  of  all  such, 
persons  as  were  qualified  to  labor  advantageously  in  the  service- 
of  books. 

"To  conclude.  All  of  either  sex,  of  every  degree,  estate,  or- 
dignity,  whose  pursuits  were  in  any  way  connected  with  books,, 
could,  with  a  knock,  most  easily  open  the  door  of  our  heart,  and 
find  a  convenient  reposing  place  in  our  bosom.  We  so  admitted 
all  who  brought  books,  that  neither  the  multitude  of  first-comers- 


214  If  IS  FUNCTIONS. 

scholar,  was  by  converting  them  into  a  library  for 
Durham  College,  which  merged  into  Trinity  of 
Oxford.  It  would  have  been  a  pleasant  thing  to 
look  upon  the  actual  collection  of  manuscripts 
which  awakened  so  much  recorded  zeal  and  ten 
derness  in  the  great  ecclesiastic  of  five  hundred 
years  ago  ;  but  in  later  troubles  they  became  dis 
persed,  and  all  that  seems  to  be  known  of  their 
whereabouts  is,  that  some  of  them  are  in  the  library 
of  Baliol.1  Another  eminent  English  prelate  made 
a  worthy,  but  equally  ineffectual,  attempt  to  found 
a  great  university  library.  This  was  the  Rev.  John 
Fisher,  Bishop  of  Rochester,  who  gave  what  was 
called  "  the  noblest  library  in  England "  to  the 
newly-founded  college  of  St.  John's.  It  was  not  a 
bequest.  To  make  his  gift  secure,  it  was  made 
over  directly  to  the  college,  but  as  he  could  not 
part  with  his  favorites  while  he  lived,  he  borrowed 
the  whole  back  for  life.  This  is  probably  the  most 
extensive  book  loan  ever  negotiated  ;  but  the  Ref 
ormation,  and  his  tragic  destiny,  were  coming  on 
apace,  and  the  books  were  lost  both  to  himself  and 
his  favorite  college.2 

could  produce  a  fastidiousness  of  the  last,  nor  the  benefit  con 
ferred  yesterday  be  prejudicial  to  that  of  to-day.  Wherefore,  as 
we  were  continually  resorted  to  by  all  the  aforesaid  persons,  as 
to  a  sort  of  adamant  attractive  of  books,  the  desired  accession  of 
the  vessels  of  science,  and  a  multifarious  flight  of  the  best  vol 
umes  were  made  to  us.  And  this  is  what  we  undertook  to  relate 
at  large  in  the  present  chapter." 

1  Eil wards  on  Libraries,  vol.  i.  p.  586. 

2  Ibid.  p.  609. 


THE  PRESERVATION  OF  LITERATURE.      215 


(Elje  presentation  of  £iterature. 

HE  benefactors  whose  private  collec 
tions  Lave,  by  a  generous  act  of  en 
dowment,  been  thus  rendered  at  the 
same  time  permanent  and  public,  could 
be  counted  by  hundreds.  It  is  now,  however,  my 
function  to  describe  a  more  subtle,  but  no  less  pow 
erful  influence,  which  the  book-hunter  exercises  in 
the  preservation  and  promulgation  of  literature, 
through  the  mere  exercise  of  that  instinct  or  pas 
sion  which  makes  him  what  he  is  here  called. 
What  has  been  said  above  must  have  suggested  — 
if  it  was  not  seen  before  —  how  great  a  pull  it  gives 
to  any  public  library,  that  it  has  had  an  early  start ; 
and  how  hard  it  is,  with  any  amount  of  wealth  and 
energy,  to  make  up  for  lost  time,  and  raise  a  later 
institution  to  the  level  of  its  senior.  The  Imperial 
Library  of  Paris,  which  has  so  marvellously  lived 
through  all  the  storms  that  have  swept  round  its 
walls,  was  founded  in  the  fourteenth  century.  It 
began,  of  course,  with  manuscripts  ;  possessing,  be 
fore  the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  century,  the  then 
enormous  number  of  a  thousand  volumes.  The 
reason,  however,  of  its  present  greatness,  so  far  be 
yond  the  rivalry  of  later  establishments,  is,  that  it 
was  in  active  operation  at  the  birth  of  printing,  and 
received  the  first-born  of  the  press.  There  they 
have  been  sheltered  and  preserved,  while  their  un- 


216  HIS  FUNCTIONS. 

protected  brethren,  tossed  about  in  the  world  out 
side,  have  long  disappeared,  and  passed  out  of  exist 
ence  forever. 

It  is  a  common  notion,  which  has  been  floated 
off  from  time  to  time,  inflated  with  every  variety  of 
rhetorical  gas,  that,  since  the  age  of  printing,  no 
book  once  put  to  press  has  ever  died.  The  notion 
is  quite  inconsistent  with  fact.  When  we  count  by 
hundreds  of  thousands  the  books  that  are  in  the 
Paris  Library,  and  not  to  be  had  for  the  British 
Museum,  we  see  the  number  of  books  which  a 
chance  refuge  has  caught  up  from  the  general  de 
struction,  and  can  readily  see,  in  shadowy  bulk, 
though  we  cannot  estimate  in  numbers,  the  great 
mass  which,  having  found  no  refuge,  have  disap 
peared  out  of  separate  existence,  and  been  min 
gled  up  with  the  other  elements  of  the  earth's 
crust. 

We  have  many  accounts  of  the  marvellous  pres 
ervation  of  books,  after  they  have  become  rare  — 
the  snatching  of  them  as  brands  from  the  burning; 
their  hairbreadth-'scapes  i'  the  imminent  deadly 
breach.  It  would  be  interesting,  also,  to  have 
some  account  of  the  progress  of  destruction  among 
books.  A  work  dedicated  apparently  to  this  object, 
which  I  have  been  unable  to  find  in  the  body,  is 
mentioned  under  a  very  tantalizing  title.  It  is  by 
a  certain  John  Charles  Conrad  Oelrichs,  author  of 
several  scraps  of  literary  history,  and  is  called  a 
Dissertation  concerning  the  Fates  of  Libraries  and 
Books,  and,  in  the  first  place,  concerning  the  books 


THE  PRESERVATION  OF  LITERATURE.     217 

that  have  been  eaten  —  such  I  take  to  be  the  mean 
ing  of  Dissertatio  cle  Bibliothecarum  ac  Librorum 
Fatis,  imprimis  libris  comestis.1  This  is  nearly  as 
tantalizing  as  the  wooden-legged  Britisher's  expla 
nation  to  the  inquisitive  Yankee,  who  solemnly  en 
gaged  to  ask  not  another  question  were  he  told  how 
that  leg  was  lost,  and  was  accordingly  told  that  "  it 
was  bitten  off." 

Religious  and  political  intolerance  has,  as  all  the 
world  knows,  been  a  terrible  enemy  to  literature, 
not  only  by  absolute  suppression,  but  by  the  re 
straints  of  the  licenser.  So  little  was  literary  free 
dom  indeed  understood  anywhere  until  recent  days, 
that  it  was  only  by  an  accident,  after  the  Revolu 
tion,  that  the  licensing  of  books  was  abolished  in 
England.  The  new  licenser,  Edmond  Bohun,  hap 
pened  in  fact  to  be  a  Jacobite,  and  though  he  pro 
fessed  to  conform  to  the  Revolution  settlement,  his 
sympathies  with  the  exiled  house  disabled  him  from 
detecting  disaffection  skilfully  smothered,  and  the 
House  of  Commons,  in  a  rage,  abolished  his  office 
by  refusing  to  renew  the  licensing  act.  Of  the  ex 
tent  to  which  literature  has  suffered  by  suppres 
sion,  there  are  no  data  for  a  precise  estimate.  It 
might  bring  out  some  curious  results,  however,  were 

1  [The  author's  perplexity  is  caused  by  a  mere  shade  of  mean 
ing.  The  good  Oelrichs  plainly  refers  to  books  which  have  been 
devoured ;  as  we  know,  from  the  publishers'  advertisements  and 
the  assurances  of  young  ladies,  that  many  books  are,  every  year. 
This  book,  and  particularly  the  pages  on  which  these  notes  are 
written,  will  be  eagerly  devoured  by  an  intelligent  public,  and 
so  pass  to  a  place  among  the  libri  comesti.  —  W.] 


218  BIS  FUNCTIONS. 

any  investigator  to  tell  us  of  the  books  wliich  had 
been  effectually  put  down  after  being  in  existence. 
It  would,  of  course,  be  found  that  the  weak  were 
crushed,  while  the  strong  flourished.  Among  the 
valuable  bibliographical  works  of  Peignot,  is  a  dic 
tionary  of  books  which  have  been  condemned  to  the 
flames,  suppressed,  or  censured.  We  do  not  require 
to  go  far  through  his  alphabet  to  see  how  futile  the 
burnings  and  condemnations  have  been  in  their  effect 
on  the  giants  of  literature.  The  first  name  of  all  is 
that  of  Abelard,  and  so  going  on  we  pick  up  the 
witty  scamp  Aretin,  then  pass  on  to  D'Aubign<$, 
the  great  warrior  and  historian,  Bayle,  Beaumar- 
chais,  Boulanger,  Catullus,  Charron,  Condillac, 
Cre*billon,  and  so  on,  down  to  Voltaire  and  Wic- 
liffe. 

Wars  and  revolutions  have  of  course  done  their 
natural  work  on  many  libraries,  yet  the  mischief 
effected  by  them  has  often  been  more  visible  than 
real,  since  they  have  tended  rather  to  dispersion 
than  destruction.  The  total  loss  to  literature  by 
the  dispersion  of  the  libraries  of  the  monastic  estab 
lishments  in  England,  is  probably  not  nearly  so 
great  as  that  which  has  accompanied  the  chronic 
mouldering  away  of  the  treasures  preserved  so  ob 
stinately  by  the  lazy  monks  of  the  Levant,  who 
were  found  by  Mr.  Curzon  at  their  public  devotions 
laying  down  priceless  volumes  which  they  could  not 
read  to  protect  their  dirty  feet  from  the  cold  floor. 
In  the  wildest  times  the  book  repository  often  par 
takes  in  the  good  fortune  of  the  humble  student 


THE  PRESERVATION  OF  LITERATURE.      219 

whom  the  storm  passes  over.  In  the  hour  of  dan 
ger  too,  some  friend  who  keeps  a  quiet  eve  upon 
its  safety  may  interpose  at  the  critical  moment. 
The  treasures  of  the  French  libraries  were  certainly 
in  terrible  danger  when  Robespierre  had  before  him 
the  draft  of  a  decree,  that  "  the  books  of  the  public 
libraries  of  Paris  and  the  departments  should  no 
longer  be  permitted  to  offend  the  eyes  of  the  repub 
lic  by  shameful  marks  of  servitude."  The  word 
would  have  gone  forth,  and  a  good  deal  beyond  the 
mere  marks  of  servitude  would  have  been  doubtless 
destroyed,  had  not  the  emergency  called  forth  the 
courage  and  energies  of  Renouard  and  Didot.1 

There  are  probably  false  impressions  abroad  as 
to  the  susceptibility  of  literature  to  destruction  by 
fire.  Books  are  not  good  fuel,  as,  fortunately,  many 
a  housemaid  has  found,  when,  among  other  frantic 
efforts  and  failures  in  fire-lighting,  she  has  reasoned 
from  the  false  data  of  the  inflammability  of  a  piece 
of  paper.  In  the  days  when  heretical  books  were 
burned,  it  was  necessary  to  place  them  on  large 
wooden  stages,  and  after  all  the  pains  taken  to 
demolish  them,  considerable  readable  masses  were 
sometimes  found  in  the  embers  ;  whence  it  was  sup 
posed  that  the  devil,  conversant  in  fire  and  its  effects, 
gave  them  his  special  protection.  In  the  end  it  was 
found  easier  and  cheaper  to  burn  the  heretics  them 
selves  than  their  books. 

Thus  books  can  be  burned,  but  they  don't  burn, 
and  though  in  great  fires  libraries  have  been  wholly 
1  See  Edwards  on  Libraries,  vol.  ii.  p.  272. 


220  ms  FUNCTIONS. 

or  partially  destroyed,  we  never  hear  of  a  library 
making  a  great  conflagration  like  a  cotton  mill  or  a 
tallow  warehouse.  Nay,  a  story  is  told  of  a  house 
seeming  irretrievably  on  fire,  until  the  flames,  coin 
ing  in  contact  with  the  folio  Corpus  Juris  and  the 
Statutes  at  Large,  were  quite  unable  to  get  over  this 
joint  barrier,  and  sank  defeated.  When  anything 
is  said  about  the  burning  of  libraries,  Alexandria  at 
once  flares  up  in  the  memory  ;  but  it  is  strange  how 
little  of  a  satisfactory  kind  investigators  have  been 
able  to  make  out,  either  about  the  formation  or 
destruction  of  the  many  famous  libraries  collected 
from  time  to  time  in  that  city.  There  seems  little 
doubt  that  Ca?sar's  auxiliaries  unintentionally  burnt 
one  of  them  ;  its  contents  were  probably  written  on 
papyrus,  a  material  about  as  inflammable  as  dried 
reeds  or  wood-shavings.  As  to  that  other  burning 
in  detail,  when  the  collection  was  used  for  fuel  to 
the  baths,  and  lasted  some  six  weeks  —  surely  never 
was  there  a  greater  victim  of  historical  prejudice 
and  calumny  than  the  "  ignorant  and  fanatical  " 
Caliph  Omar  al  Raschid.  Over  and  over  has  his 
act  been  disproved,  and  yet  it  will  continue  to  be 
re-asserted  with  uniform  pertinacity  in  successive 
rolling  sentences,  all  as  like  each  other  as  the  suc 
cessive  billows  in  a  swell  at  sea.  * 


1  One  of  the  latest  inquirers  \vlio  has  gone  over  the  ground 
concludes  his  evidence  thus: — "Omar  ne  vint  pas  a  Alexan- 
drie;  et  s'il  y  fut  venu,  il  n'eut  pas  trouve  des  livres  a  bruler. 
La  bibliotheque  n'existait  plus  depuis  deux  siecles  et  demi."  — 
Fournier,  L'Esprit  dans  I'llistoire. 


THE  PRESERVATION  OF  LITERATURE.      221 

Apart,  however,  from  violence  and  accident,  there 
is  a  constant  decay  of  books  from  what  might  be 
called  natural  causes,  keeping,  like  the  decay  of  the 
human  race,  a  proportion  to  their  reproduction, 
which  varies  according  to  place  or  circumstance  ; 
here  showing  a  rapid  increase  where  production  out 
runs  decay,  and  there  a  decrease  where  the  morbid 
elements  of  annihilation  are  stronger  than  the  active 
elements  of  reproduction.  Indeed,  volumes  are  in 
their  varied  external  conditions  very  like  human 
beino-s.  There  are  some  stout  and  others  frail  — 

o 

some  healthy  and  others  sickly  ;  and  it  happens 
often  that  the  least  robust  are  the  most  precious. 
The  full  fresh  health  of  some  of  the  folio  fathers 
and  schoolmen,  ranged  side  by  side  in  solemn  state 
on  the  oaken  shelves  of  some  venerable  repository, 
is  apt  to  surprise  those  who  expect  mouldy  decay  ; 
the  stiff  hard  binding  is  as  angular  as  ever, — there 
is  no  abrasion  of  the  leaves,  not  a  single  dog-ear  or 
a  spot,  or  even  a  dust-border  on  the  mellowed  white 
of  the  margin.  So,  too,  of  those  quarto  civilians 
and  canonists  of  Leyden  and  Amsterdam,  with  their 
smooth  white  vellum  coats,  bearing  so  generic  a  re 
semblance  to  Dutch  cheeses,  that  they  might  be 
supposed  to  represent  the  experiments  of  some 
Gouda  dairyman  on  the  quadrature  of  the  circle. 
An  easy  life  and  an  established  position  in  society 
are  the  secret  of  their  excellent  preservation  and 
condition.  Their  repose  has  been  little  disturbed 
by  intrusive  readers  or  unceremonious  investiga 
tors,  and  their  repute  for  solid  learning  has  given 


222  uis  FUNCTIONS. 

them   a  claim  to  attention    and  careful  preserva 
tion. 

Though  this  is  dwindling  away,  like  many  other 
conventional  distinctions  of  rank,  yet  are  authors  of 
the  present  day  not  entirely  divested  of  the  oppor 
tunity  of  taking  their  place  on  the  shelf  like  these 
old  dignitaries.     It  would  be  as  absurd,  of  course, 
to  appear  in  folio  as  to  step  abroad  in  the  small 
clothes  and  queue  of  our  great-grandfathers'  day, 
and  even  quarto  is  reserved  for  science  and  some 
departments  of  the  law.     But  then,  on  the  other 
hand,  octavos  are  growing  as  large  as  some  of  the 
folios  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  a  solid  roomy- 
looking  book  is  still  practicable.     Whoever  desires 
to  achieve  a  sure,  though  it  may  be  but  a  humble, 
niche  in  the  temple  of  fame,  let  him  write  a  few 
solid  volumes,  with  respectably  sounding  titles,  and 
matter  that  will  rather  repel  the  reader  than  court 
him  to  such  familiarity  as  may  beget   contempt. 
Such  books  are  to  the  frequenter  of  a  library  like 
country  gentlemen's  seats  to  travellers,  something 
to  know  the  name  and  ownership  of  in  passing. 
The  stage-coachman  of  old  use  to  proclaim  each  in 
succession  —  the  guide-book   tells  them  now.     So 
do  literary  guide-books,  in   the  shape  of  library- 
catalogues  and  bibliographies,  tell  of  these  steady 
and  respectable  mansions   of  literature.      No  one 
speaks  ill  of  them,  or  even  proclaims  his  ignorance 
of  their  nature,  and  your  "  man  who  knows  every 
thing  "  will  profess  some  familiarity  with  them,  the 
more  readily  that  the  verity  of  his  pretensions  is 


THE  PRESERVATION  OF  LITERATURE.      223 

not  likely  to  be  tested.  A  man's  name  may  have 
resounded  for  a  time  through  all  the  newspapers  as 
the  gainer  of  a  great  victory  or  the  speaker  of  mar 
vellous  speeches  —  he  may  have  been  the  most  brill 
iant  wit  of  some  distinguished  social  circle  —  the 
head  of  a  great  profession  —  even  a  leading  states 
man,  yet  his  memory  has  utterly  evaporated  with 
the  departure  of  his  own  generation.  Had  he  but 
written  one  or  two  of  these  solid  books,  now,  his 
name  would  have  been  perpetuated  in  catalogues 
and  bibliographical  dictionaries  ;  nay,  biographies 
and  encyclopaidias  would  contain  their  titles,  and 
perhaps  the  day  of  the  author's  birth  and  death. 
Let  those  who  desire  posthumous  fame,  counting 
recollection  as  equivalent  to  fame,  think  of  this. 

It  is  with  no  desire  to  further  the  annihilation  or 
decay  of  the  stout  and  long-lived  class  of  books  of 
which  I  have  been  speaking,  that  I  now  draw 
attention  to  the  book-hunter's  services  in  the  pres 
ervation  of  some  that  are  of  a  more  fragile  nature, 
and  are  liable  to  droop  and  decay.  We  can  see  the 
process  going  on  around  us,  just  as  we  see  other 
things  travelling  towards  extinction.  Look,  for 
instance,  at  school-books,  how  rapidly  and  ob 
viously  they  go  to  ruin.  True,  there  are  plenty 
of  them,  but  save  of  those  preserved  in  the  priv 
ileged  libraries,  or  of  any  that  may  be  tossed  aside 
among  lumber  in  which  they  happen  to  remain 
until  they  become  curiosities,  what  chance  is  there 
of  any  of  them  being  in  existence  a  century  hence  ? 
Collectors  know  well  the  extreme  rarity  and  value 


224  fUS  FUNCTIONS. 

of  ancient  school-books.  Nor  is  their  value  by  any 
means  fanciful.  The  dominie  will  tell  us  that  they 
are  old-fashioned,  and  the  pedagogue  who  keeps  a 
school,  "  and  ca's  it  a  acaudemy,"  will  sneer  at 
them  as  "  obsolete  and  incompatible  with  the  en 
lightened  adjuncts  of  modern  tuition;"  but  if  we 
are  to  consider  that  the  condition  of  the  human 
intellect  at  any  particular  juncture  is  worth  study 
ing,  it  is  certainly  of  importance  to  know  on  what 
food  its  infancy  is  fed.  And  so  of  children's  play- 
books  as  well  as  their  work-books  ;  these  are  as 
ephemeral  as  their  other  toys.  Retaining  dear 
recollections  of  some  that  were  the  favorites,  and 
desiring  to  awaken  from  them  old  recollections  of 
careless  boyhood,  or  perhaps  to  try  whether  your 
own  children  inherit  the  paternal  susceptibility  to 
their  beauties,  you  make  application  to  the  book 
seller —  but,  behold,  they  have  disappeared  from 
existence  as  entirely  as  the  rabbits  you  fed,  and 
the  terrier  that  followed  you  with  his  cheery  clat 
tering  bark.  Neither  name  nor  description  —  not 
the  announcement  of  the  benevolent  publishers, 
"  Darton,  Harvey,  and  Darton  "  —  can  recover  the 
faintest  traces  of  their  vestiges.  Old  cookery-books, 
almanacs,  books  of  prognostication,  directories  for 
agricultural  operations,  guides  to  handicrafts,  and 
other  works  of  a  practical  nature,  are  infinitely 
valuable  when  they  refer  to  remote  times,  and  also 
infinitely  rare. 

But   of  course   the   most  interesting  of  all  are 
the  relics  of  pure  literature,  of  poems  and  plays. 


THE  PRESERVATION  OF  LITERATURE.    225 

Whence  have  arisen  all  the  anxious  searches  and 
disappointments,  and  the  bitter  contests,  and  the 
rare  triumphs,  about  the  early  editions  of  Shake 
speare,  separately  or  collectively,  save  from  this, 
that  they  passed  from  one  impatient  hand  to  an 
other,  and  were  subjected  to  an  unceasing  greedy 
perusal,  until  they  were  at  last  used  up  and  put 
out  of  existence  ?  True  it  was  to  be  with  him  — 

"  So  sinks  the  day -star  in  the  ocean  bed, 
And  yet  anon  repairs  his  drooping  head, 
And  tricks  his  beams,  and  with  new  spangled  ore, 
Flames  in  the  forehead  of  the  morning  sky/' 

But  his  tuneful  companions  who  had  less  vital 
power  have  lain  like  some  ancient  cemetery  or 
buried  city,  in  which  antiquaries  have  been  for  a 
long  age  digging  and  searching  for  some  fragment 
of  intellectual  treasure. 

One  book,  and  that  the  most  read  of  all,  was 
hedged  by  a  sort  of  divinity  which  protected  it,  so 
far  as  that  was  practicable,  from  the  dilapidating 
effects  of  use.  The  Bible  seems  to  have  been  ever 
touched  with  reverent  gentleness,  and,  when  the 
sordid  effects  of  lono;  handling  had  become  inevi- 

O  O 

tably  conspicuous,  to  have  been  generally  removed 
out  of  sight,  and,  as  it  were,  decently  interred. 
Hence  it  is  that,  of  the  old  editions  of  the  Bible, 
the  copies  are  so  comparatively  numerous  and  in 
such  fine  preservation.  Look  at  those  two  folios 
from  the  types  of  Guttenburg  and  Fust,  running 
so  far  back  into  the  earliest  stage  of  the  art  of 

O 

15 


226  HIS  FUNCTIONS. 

printing,  that  of  them  is  told  the  legend  of  a  com 
bination  with  the  devil,  which  enabled  one  man  to 
write  so  many  copies  identically  the  same.  See 
how  clean  and  spotless  is  the  paper,  and  how  black, 
glossy,  and  distinct  the  type,  telling  us  how  little 
progress  printing  has  made  since  the  days  of  its 
inventors,  in  anything  save  the  greater  rapidity 
with  which,  in  consequence  of  the  progress  of  ma 
chinery,  it  can  now  be  executed. 

The  reason  of  the  extreme  rarity  of  the  books 
printed  by  the  early  English  printers  is  that,  being 
very  amusing,  they  were  used  up  —  thumbed  out  of 
existence.  Such  were  Caxton's  book  of  the  Ordre 
of  Chyualry ;  his  Knyght  of  the  Toure ;  the 
Myrour  of  the  World ;  and  the  Golden  Legende ; 
Cocke  Lorell's  Bote,  by  De  Worde ;  his  Kalender 
of  Shepeherdes,  and  such  like.  If  any  one  feels  an 
interest  in  the  process  of  exhaustion,  by  which  such 
treasures  were  reduced  to  rarity,  he  may  easily 
witness  it  in  the  debris  of  a  circulating  library  ; 
and  perhaps  he  will  find  the  phenomenon  in  still 
more  distinct  operation  at  any  book-stall  where  lie 
heaps  of  school-books,  odd  volumes  of  novels,  and  a 
choice  of  Watts's  Hymns  and  Pilgrim's  Progresses. 
Here,  too,  it  is  possible  that  the  enlightened  on 
looker  may  catch  sight  of  the  book-hunter  plying 
his  vocation,  much  after  the  manner  in  which,  in 
some  ill-regulated  town,  he  may  have  beheld  the 
cUffonniers,  at  early  dawn,  rummaging  among  the 
cinder-heaps  for  ejected  treasures.  A  ragged  morsel 
is  perhaps  carefully  severed  from  the  heap,  wrapped 


THE  PRESERVATION  OF  LITERATURE.     227 

in  paper  to  keep  its  leaves  together,  and  deposited 
in  the  purchaser's  pocket.  You  would  probably 
find  it  difficult  to  recognize  the  fragment,  if  you 
should  see  it  in  the  brilliancy  of  its  resuscitation. 
A  skilled  and  cautious  workman  has  applied  a  bitu 
minous  solvent  to  its  ragged  edges,  and  literally 
incorporated,  by  a  sort  of  paper-making  process,, 
each  mouldering  page  into  a  broad  leaf  of  fine- 
strong  paper,  in  which  the  print,  according  to  a 
simile  used  for  such  occasions,  seems  like  a  small 
rivulet  in  a  wide  meadow  of  margin.  This  is  termed 
inlaying,  and  is  a  very  lofty  department  in  the  art 
of  binding.  Then  there  is,  besides,  the  grandeur  of 
russia  or  morocco,  with  gilding,  and  tooling,  and 
marbling,  and  perhaps  a  ribbon  marker,  dangling 
out  with  a  decoration  at  its  end  —  all  tending,  like 
stars,  and  garters,  and  official  robes,  to  stamp  the 
outer  insignia  of  importance  on  the  book,  and  to 
warn  all  the  world  to  respect  it,  and  save  it  from 
the  risks  to  which  the  common  herd  of  literature  is 
liable.1 

1  There  is  something  exceedingly  curious,  not  only  in  its 
bearing  on  the  matter  of  the  text,  but  as  a  record  of  some  pecul 
iar  manners  and  habits  of  the  fourteenth  century,  in  liobert  of 
Bury's  injunctions  as  to  the  proper  treatment  of  the  manuscripts 
which  were  read  in  his  day,  and  the  signal  contrast  offered  by 
the  practice  both  of  the  clergy  and  laity  to  his  decorous  precepts. 

"  We  not  only  set  before  ourselves  a  service  to  God  in  prepar 
ing  volumes  of  new  books,  but  we  exercise  the  duties  of  a  holy 
piety,  if  we  first  handle  so  as  not  to  injure  them,  then  return 
them  to  their  proper  places  and  commend  them  to  undefiling 
custody,  that  they  may  rejoice  in  their  purity  while  held  in  the 
hand,  and  repose  in  security  when  laid  up  in  their  repositories. 


228  HIS  FUNCTIONS. 

I  have  recourse  to  our  old  friend  Monkbarns 
again  for  a  brilliant  description  of  the  bibliophile, 
as  the  French  politely  call  him,  in  the  performance 
of  the  function  assigned  to  him  in  the  dispensation 

Truly,  next  to  the  vestments  and  vessels  dedicated  to  the  body 
of  the  Lord,  holy  books  deserve  to  be  most  decorously  handled 
by  the  clergy,  upon  which  injury  is  inflicted  as  often  as  they 
presume  to  touch  them  with  a  dirty  hand.  Wherefore,  we  hold 
it  expedient  to  exhort  students  upon  various  negligences  which 
can  always  be  avoided,  but  which  are  wonderfully  injurious  to 
books. 

"  In  the  first  place,  then,  let  there  be  a  mature  decorum  in 
opening  and  closing  of  volumes,  that  they  may  neither  be  un 
clasped  with  precipitous  haste,  nor  thrown  aside  after  inspection 
without  being  duly  closed  ;  for  it  is  necessary  that  a  bock  should 
be  much  more  carefully  preserved  than  a  shoe.  But  school  folks 
are  in  general  perversely  educated,  and,  if  not  restraint-d  by  the 
rule  of  their  superiors,  are  puffed  up  with  infinite  absurdities  ; 
they  act  with  petulance,  swell  with  presumption,  judge  of  every 
thing  with  certainty,  and  are  unexperienced  in  anything. 

"  You  will  perhaps  see  a  stiff-necked  youth,  lounging  slug 
gishly  in  his  study,  while  the  frost  pinches  him  in  winter  time, 
oppressed  with  cold,  his  watery  nose  drops,  nor  does  he  take  the 
trouble  to  wipe  it  with  his  handkerchief  till  it  has  moistened  the 
book  beneath  it  with  its  vile  dew.  For  such  a  one,  I  would  sub 
stitute  a  cobbler's  apron  in  the  place  of  his  book.  He  has  a  nail 
like  a  giant's,  perfumed  with  stinking  filth,  with  which  he  points 
out  the  place  of  any  pleasant  subject.  He  distributes  innumer 
able  straws  in  various  places,  with  the  ends  in  sight,  that  he 
may  recall  by  the  mark  what  his  memory  cannot  retain.  These 
straws,  which  the  stomach  of  the  book  never  digests,  and  which 
nobody  takes  out,  at  first  distend  the  book  from  its  accustomed 
closure,  and,  being  carelessly  left  to  oblivion,  at  last  become 
putrid.  He  is  not  ashamed  to  eat  fruit  and  cheese  over  an  open 
book,  and  to  transfer  his  empty  cup  from  side  to  side  upon  it ; 
and  because  he  has  not  his  alms-bag  at  hand,  he  leaves  the  rest 
of  the  fragments  in  his  books.  He  never  ceases  to  chatter  with 
eternal  garrulity  to  his  companions;  and  while  he  adduces  a 


THE  PRESER  VA  T10N  OF  LITER  A  TURE.      229 

of  things,  —  renewing  my  already  recorded  protest 
against  the  legitimacy  of  the  commercial  part  of  the 
transaction  :  — 

" '  Snnffy   Davie    bought   the    Game   of  Chess, 

multitude  of  reasons  void  of  physical  meaning,  he  waters  the 
book,  spread  out  upon  his  lap,  with  the  sputtering  of  his  saliva. 
What  is  worse,  he  next  reclines  with  his  elbows  on  the  book, 
and  by  a  short  study  invites  a  long  nap;  and  by  way  of  repairing 
the  wrinkles,  he  twists  back  the  margins  of  the  leaves,  to  the  no 
small  detriment  of  the  volume.  He  goes  out  in  the  rain,  and 
now  flowers  make  their  appearance  upon  our  soil.  Then  the 
scholar  we  are  describing,  the  neglecter  rather  than  the  inspec 
tor  of  books,  stuffs  his  volume  with  firstling  violets,  roses,  and 
quadrifoils.  He  will  next  apply  his  wet  hands,  oozing  with 
sweat,  to  turning  over  the  volumes,  then  beat  the  white  parch 
ment  all  over  with  his  dusty  gloves,  or  hunt  over  the  page,  line 
by  line,  with  his  forefinger  covered  with  dirty  leather.  Then, 
as  the  flea  bites,  the  holy  book  is  thrown  aside,  which,  however, 
is  scarcely  closed  in  a  month,  and  is  so  swelled  with  the  dust 
that  has  fallen  into  it,  that  it  will  not  yield  to  the  efforts  of  the 
closer. 

"  But  impudent  boys  are  to  be  specially  restrained  from  med 
dling  with  books,  who,  when  they  are  learning  to  draw  the  forms 
of  letters,  if  copies  of  the  most  beautiful  books  are  allowed  them, 
begin  to  become  incongruous  annotators,  and  wherever  they 
perceive  the  broadest  margin  about  the  text,  they  furnish  it 
wifh  a  monstrous  alphabet,  or  their  unchastened  pen  imme 
diately  presumes  to  draw  any  other  frivolous  thing  whatever 
that  occurs  to  their  imagination.  There  the  Latinist,  there  the 
sophist,  there  every  sort  of  unlearned  scribe  tries  the  goodness 
of  his  pen,  which  we  have  frequently  seen  to  have  been  most 
injurious  to  the  fairest  volumes,  both  as  to  utility  and  price. 
There  are  also  certain  thieves  who  enormously  dismember  books 
by  cutting  off  the  side  margins  for  letter-paper  (leaving  only  the 
letters  or  text),  or  the  fly-leaves  put  in  for  the  preservation  of 
the  book,  which  they  take  away  for  various  uses  and  abuses, 
which  sort  of  sacrilege  ought  to  be  prohibited  under  a  threat  of, 
anathema. 


230  BIS  FUNCTIONS. 

1474,  the  first  book  ever  printed  in  England,  from 
a  stall  in  Holland,  for  about  two  groschen,  or  two 
pence  of  our  money.  He  sold  it  to  Osborne  for 
twenty  pounds,  and  as  many  books  as  came  to 
twenty  pounds  more.  Osborne  resold  this  inimi 
table  windfall  to  Dr.  Askew  for  sixty  guineas.  At 
Dr.  Askew's  sale,'  continued  the  old  gentleman, 
kindling  as  he  spoke,  4  this  inestimable  treasure 
blazed  forth  in  its  full  value,  and  was  purchased 
by  royalty  itself  for  one  hundred  and  seventy 
pounds !  Could  a  copy  now  occur,  Lord  only 
knows,'  he  ejaculated,  with  a  deep  sigh  and  lifted- 
up  hands,  — 4  Lord  only  knows  what  would  be  its 
ransom  !  —  and  yet  it  was  originally  secured,  by  skill 

"  But  it  is  altogether  befitting  the  decency  of  a  scholar  that 
washing  should  without  fail  precede  reading,  as  often  as  he  re 
turns  from  his  meals  to  study,  before  his  fingers,  besmeared 
with  grease,  loosen  a  clasp  or  turn  over  the  leaf  of  a  book.  Let 
not  a  crying  child  admire  the  drawings  in  the  capital  letters,  lest 
he  pollute  the  parchment  with  his  wet  fingers,  for  he  instantly 
touches  whatever  he  sees. 

"  Furthermore,  laymen,  to  whom  it  matters  not  whether  they 
look  at  a  book  turned  wrong  side  upwards  or  spread  before  them 
in  its  natural  order,  are  altogether  unworthy  of  any  communion 
with  books.  Let  the  clerk  also  take  order  that  the  dirty  scul 
lion,  stinking  from  the  pots,  do  not  touch  the  leaves  of  books 
unwashed ;  but  he  who  enters  without  spot  shall  give  his  ser 
vices  to  the  precious  volumes. 

"  The  cleanliness  of  delicate  hands,  as  if  scabs  and  postules 
could  not  be  clerical  characteristics,  might  also  be  most  impor 
tant,  as  well  to  books  as  to  scholars,  who,  as  often  as  they  per 
ceive  defects  in  books,  should  attend  to  them  instantly,  for  noth 
ing  enlarges  more  quickly  than  a  rent,  as  a  fracture  neglected  at 
the  time  will  .afterwards  be  repaired  with  increased  trouble." — 
Philobiblion,  p.  101. 


THE  PRESERVATION  OF  LITERATURE.      231 

and  research,  for  the  easy  equivalent  of  twopence 
sterling.  Happy,  thrice  happy,  Snuffy  Davie  !  — 
and  blessed  were  the  times  when  thy  industry  could 
be  so  rewarded  ! ' ' 

In  such  manner  is  it  that  books  are  saved  from 
annihilation,  and  that  their  preservers  become  the 
feeders  of  the  great  collections  in  which,  after  their 
value  is  established,  they  find  refuge  ;  and  herein  it 
is  that  the  class  to  whom  our  attention  is  at  present 
devoted  perform  an  inestimable  service  to  litera 
ture.  It  is,  as  you  will  observe,  the  general  ambi 
tion  of  the  class  to  find  value  where  there  seems 
to  be  none,  and  this  develops  a  certain  skill  and 
subtlety,  enabling  the  operator,  in  the  midst  of  a 
heap  of  rubbish,  to  put  his  finger  on  those  things 
which  have  in  them  the  latent  capacity  to  become 
valuable  and  curious.  The  adept  will  at  once  intui 
tively  separate  from  its  friends  the  book  that  either 
is  or  will  become  curious.  There  must  be  some 
thing  more  than  mere  rarity  to  give  it  this  value, 
although  high  authorities  speak  of  the  paucity  of 
copies  as  being  everything.  David  Clement,  the 
illustrious  French  bibliographer,  who  seems  to  have 
anticipated  the  positive  philosophy  by  an  attempt  to 
make  bibliography,  as  the  Germans  have  named  it, 
one  of  the  exact  sciences,  lays  it  down  with  author 
ity,  that  "  a  book  which  it  is  difficult  to  find  in  the 
country  where  it  is  sought  ought  to  be  called  sim 
ply  rare  ;  a  book  which  it  is  difficult  to  find  in  any 
country  may  be  called  very  rare  ;  a  book  of  which 
there  are  only  fifty  or  sixty  copies  existing,  or 


232  BIS  FUNCTIONS. 

which  appears  so  seldom  as  if  there  never  had 
been  more  at  any  time  than  that  number  of  copies, 
ranks  as  extremely  rare;  and  when  the  whole  num 
ber  of  copies  does  not  exceed  ten,  this  constitutes 
excessive  rarity,  or  rarity  in  the  highest  degree." 
This  has  been  received  as  a  settled  doctrine  in  bib 
liography  ;  but  it  is  utter  pedantry.  Books  may  be 
rare  enough  in  the  real  or  objective  sense  of  the 
term,  but  if  they  are  not  so  in  the  nominal  or  sub 
jective  sense,  by  being  sought  after,  their  rarity 
goes  for  nothing.  A  volume  may  be  unique  — 
may  stand  quite  alone  in  the  world  —  but  whether 
it  is  so,  or  one  of  a  numerous  family,  is  never 
known,  for  no  one  has  ever  desired  to  possess  it, 
and  no  one  ever  will. 

But  it  is  a  curious  phenomenon  in  the  old-book 
trade,  that  rarities  do  not  always  remain  rare ;  vol 
umes  seeming  to  multiply  through  some  crypto 
gam  ic  process,  when  we  know  perfectly  that  no 
additional  copies  are  printed  and  thrown  off.  The 
fact  is,  that  the  rumor  of  scarcity,  and  value,  and 
of  a  hunt  after  them,  draws  them  from  their  hiding- 
places.  If  we  may  judge  from  the  esteem  in  which 
they  were  once  held,  the  Elzevirs  must  have  been 
great  rarities  in  this  country  ;  but  they  are  now 
plentiful  enough  —  the  heavy  prices  in  the  British 
market  having  no  doubt  sucked  them  out  of  dingy 
repositories  in  Germany  and  Holland  —  so  that, 
even  in  this  department  of  commerce,  the  law  of 
supply  and  demand  is  not  entirely  abrogated.  He 
who  dashes  at  all  the  books  called  rare,  or  even 


THE  PRESERVATION  OF  LITERATURE.      233 

very  rare,  by  Clement  and  his  brethren,  will  be  apt 
to  suffer  the  keen  disappointment  of  finding  that 
there  are  many  who  participate  with  him  in  the 
possession  of  the  same  treasures.  In  fact,  let  a 
book  but  make  its  appearance  in  that  author's 
Bibliotheque  Cnrieuse,  Historique,  et  Critique,  ou 
Catalogue  Raisonne*  de  Livres  difficiles  a  trouver ; 
or  in  Graesses's  Tresor  de  Livres  Rares  et  Pre'- 
cieux  —  let  it  be  mentioned  as  a  rarity  in  Eibert's 
Allgemeines  Bibliographisches  Lexicon,  or  in  De- 
bure,  Clement,  Osmond,  or  the  Reperiorium  Bib- 
liographicum,  —  such  proclamation  is  immediate 
notice  to  many  fortunate  possessors  who  were  no 
more  aware  of  the  value  of  their  dingy-looking  vol 
umes  than  Monsieur  Jourdain  knew  himself  to  be 
in  the  habitual  daily  practice  of  talking  prose. 

So  are  we  brought  again  back  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  true  book-hunter  must  not  be  a  follower  of 
any  abstract  external  rules,  but  must  have  an  in 
ward  sense  and  literary  taste.  It  is  not  absolutely 
that  a  book  is  rare,  or  that  it  is  run  after,  that  must 
commend  it  to  him,  but  something  in  the  book  it 
self.  Hence  the  relics  which  he  snatches  from  ruin 
will  have  some  innate  merits  to  recommend  them. 
They  will  not  be  of  that  unhappy  kind  which  no 
body  has  desired  to  possess  for  their  own  sake,  and 
nobody  ever  will.  Something  there  will  be  of  orig 
inal  genius,  or  if  not  that,  yet  of  curious,  odd,  out 
of  the  way  information,  or  of  quaintness  of  imagi 
nation,  or  of  characteristics  pervading  some  class  of 
men,  whether  a  literary  or  a  polemical,  —  some- 


234  HIS  FUNCTIONS. 

thing,  in  short,  which  people  desirous  of  informa 
tion  will  some  day  or  other  be  anxious  to  read  — 
such  are  the  volumes  which  it  is  desirable  to  save 
from  annihilation,  that  they  may  find  their  place  at 
last  in  some  of  the  great  magazines  of  the  world's 
literary  treasures. 


£ibranan0. 

T  will  often  be  fortunate  for  these  great 
institutions  if  they  obtain  the  services 
of  the  hunter  himself,  along  with  his 
spoils  of  the  chase.  The  leaders  in  the 
German  wars  often  found  it  an  exceedingly  sound 
policy  to  subsidise  into  their  own  service  some  cap 
tain  of  free  lances,  who  might  have  been  a  curse  to 
all  around  him.  Your  great  game-preservers  some 
times  know  the  importance  of  taking  the  most  noto 
rious  poacher  in  the  district  into  pay  as  a  keeper. 
So  it  is  sometimes  of  the  nature  of  the  book-hunter, 
if  he  be  of  the  genial  sort,  and  free  of  some  of  the 
more  vicious  peculiarities  of  his  kind,  to  make  an 
invaluable  librarian.  Such  an  arrangement  will 
sometimes  be  found  to  be  like  mercy  twice  blessed, 
—  it  blesseth  him  that  gives  and  him  that  takes. 
The  imprisoned  spirit  probably  finds  freedom  at 
last,  and  those  purchases  and  accumulations  which, 
to  the  private  purse,  were  profuse  and  culpable 
recklessness,  may  become  veritable  duty ;  while  the 


LIBRARIANS.  235 

warv  outlook  and  the  vigilant  observation,  which 
before  were  only  leading  a  poor  victim  into  tempta 
tion,  may  come  forth  as  commendable  attention  and 
zealous  activity. 

Sometimes  mistakes  have  been  made  in  selections 
on  this  principle,  and  a  zeal  has  been  embarked 
which  has  been  found  to  tend  neither  to  profit  nor 
edification  ;  for  there  have  been  known,  at  the  head 
of  public  libraries,  men  of  the  cerberus  kind  who 
loved  the  books  so  dearly,  as  to  be  unable  to  endure 
the  handling  of  them  by  the  vulgar  herd  of  readers 
and  searchers  —  even  by  those  for  whose  special  aid 
and  service  they  are  employed.  They  who  have 
this  morbid  terror  of  the  profanation  of  the  treas 
ures  committed  to  their  charge  suffer  in  themselves 
the  direst  torments  —  something  like  those  of  a  cat 
beholding  her  kittens  tossed  by  a  dog  —  whenever 
their  favorites  are  handled  ;  and  the  excruciating 
extent  of  their  agonies,  when  some  ardent  and 
careless  student  dashes  right  into  the  heart  of  some 
editio  princeps,  or  tall  copy,  or,  perhaps,  lays  it 
open  with  its  face  on  the  table  while  he  snatches 
another  edition  that  he  may  collate  a  passage,  is 
not  to  be  conceived.  It  is  then  the  dog  worrying 
the  kittens.  Such  men  will  only  give  satisfaction 
in  great  private  libraries  little  disturbed  by  their 
proprietors,  or  in  monastic  or  other  corporate  insti 
tutions,  where  it  is  the  worthy  object  of  the  patrons 
to  keep  their  collection  in  fine  condition,  and,  at  the 
same  time,  to  take  order  that  it  shall  be  of  the  least 
possible  service  to  education  or  literature.  Angelo 


236  HIS  FUNCTIONS. 

Mai,  the  great  librarian  of  the  Vatican,  who  made 
so  many  valuable  discoveries  himself,  had  the  char 
acter  of  taking  good  care  that  no  one  else  should 
make  any  within  his  own  strictly-preserved  hunting 
grounds. 

In  the  general  case,  however,  a  bibliophile  at  the 
head  of  a  public  library  is  genial  and  communica 
tive,  and  has  a  pleasure  in  helping  the  investigator 
through  the  labyrinth  of  its  stores.  Such  men  feel 
their  strength  ;  and  the  immense  value  of  the  ser 
vice  which  they  may  sometimes  perform  by  a  brief 
hint  in  the  right  direction  which  the  inquiry  should 
take,  or  by  handing  down  a  volume,  or  recommend 
ing  the  best  directory  to  all  the  learning  on  the 
matter  in  hand,  has  laid  many  men  of  letters  under 
great  obligations  to  them. 

The  most  eminent  type  of  this  class  of  men  was 
Magliabecchi,  librarian  to  the  Grand  Duke  of  Tus 
cany,  who  could  direct  you  to  any  book  in  any  part 
of  the  world,  with  the  precision  with  which  the 
metropolitan  policeman  directs  you  to  St.  Paul's  or 
Piccadilly.  It  is  of  him  that  the  stories  are  told  of 
answers  to  inquiries  after  books,  in  these  terms :  — 
"  There  is  but  one  copy  of  that  book  in  the  world. 
It  is  in  the  Grand  Seignior's  library  at  Constanti 
nople,  and  is  the  seventh  book  in  the  second  shelf 
on  the  right  hand  as  you  go  in."  1  His  faculties 

1  [The  ability  to  give  directions  for  finding  any  book  in  the 
world,  even  if  the  assertion  be  received  as  hyperbolical,  is  so 
marvellous  as  to  seem  almost  incredible.  But  Magliabecchi'i 
marvellousness  is  well  authenticated.  Yet,  is  the  instance  here 
cited  of  his  knowledge  very  striking  ?  If  there  had  been  half  a 


LIBRARIANS.  237 

were,  like  those  of  all  great  men,  self-born  and  self- 
trained.  So  little  was  the  impoverished  soil  in 
which  he  passed  his  infancy  congenial  to  his  pur 
suits  in  after-life,  that  it  was  not  within  the  parental 
intentions  to  teach  him  to  read,  and  his  earliest  la 
bors  were  in  the  shop  of  a  green-grocer.  Had  his 
genius  run  on  natural  science,  he  might  have  fed  it 
here,  but  it  was  his  felicity  and  his  fortune  to  be 
transferred  to  the  shop  of  a  patronizing  bookseller. 
Here  he  drank  in  an  education  such  as  no  academic 
forcing  machinery  could  ever  infuse.  He  devoured 
books,  and  the  printed  leaves  became  as  necessary 
to  his  existence  as  the  cabbage-leaves  to  the  cater 
pillars  which  at  times  made  their  not  welcome  ap 
pearance  in  the  abjured  green-grocery.  Like  these 
verdant  reptiles,  too,  he  became  assimilated  to  the 
food  he  fed  on,  insomuch  that  he  was  in  a  manner 
hot-pressed,  bound,  marble-topped,  lettered,  and 
shelved.  He  could  bear  nothing  but  books  around 
him,  and  would  allow  no  space  for  aught  else  ;  his 
furniture,  according  to  repute,  being  limited  to  two 
chairs,  the  second  of  which  was  admitted  in  order 
that  the  two  together  might  serve  as  a  bed. 

Another  enthusiast  of  the  same  kind  was  Adrien 
Baillet,  the  author,  or,  more  properly  speaking,  the 
compiler,  of  the  "  Jugemens  des  Savans."  Some 

dozen  copies  of  the  book,  and  lie  had  been  able  to  tell  the  exact 
whereabout  of  each  one,  it  would  have  been  strange  indeed. 
But  there  being  only  one  in  the  world,  if  Magliabecchi  had  ever 
seen  it,  taken  it  down,  looked  at  it,  and  put  it  back  again,  how 
could  he  help  being  able  to  put  his  finger  upon  it  in  the  dark 
forever  after  1  —  W.] 


238  HIS  FUNCTIONS. 

copies  of  this  book,  which  has  a  quantity  of  valua 
ble  matter  scattered  through  it,  have  Baillet's  por 
trait,  from  which  his  calm  scholarly  countenance 
looks  genially  forth,  with  this  appropriate  motto, 
"  Dans  une  douce  solitude,  <\  1'abri  du  mensonge  et 
de  la  vanite,  j'adoptai  la  critique,  et  j'en  fis  mon 
etude,  pour  de*couvrir  la  ve*riteY'  Him,  struggling 
with  poverty,  aggravated  with  a  thirst  for  books, 
did  Lamoignon  the  elder  place  at  the  head  of  his 
library,  thus  at  once  pasturing  him  in  clover. 
When  the  patron  told  his  friend,  Hermant,  of  his 
desire  to  find  a  librarian  possessed  of  certain  fabu 
lous  qualifications  for  the  duty,  his  correspondent 
said,  "  I  will  bring  the  very  man  to  you ; "  and 
Baillet,  a  poor,  frail,  attenuated,  diseased  scholar, 
was  produced.  His  kind  patron  fed  him  up,  so  far 
as  a  man  who  could  not  tear  himself  from  his 
books,  unless  when  nature  became  entirely  ex 
hausted,  could  be  fed  up.  The  statesman  and  his 
librarian  were  the  closest  of  friends  ;  and  on  the 
elder  Lamoignon's  death,  the  son,  still  more  dis 
tinguished,  looked  up  to  Baillet  as  a  father  and 
instructor. 

Men  of  this  stamp  are  generally  endowed  with 
deep  and  solid  learning.  For  any  one,  indeed,  to 
take  the  command  of  a  great  public  library,  without 
large  accomplishments,  especially  in  the  languages, 
is  to  put  himself  in  precisely  the  position  where 
ignorance,  superficiality,  and  quackery  are  subjected 
to  the  most  potent  test,  and  are  certain  of  detection. 
The  number  of  librarians  who  have  united  great 


LIBRARIANS.  239 

learning  to  a  love  of  books,  is  the  best  practical 
answer  to  all  sneers  about  the  two  being  incompat 
ible.  Nor,  while  we  count  among  us  such  names 
as  Pannizzi,  Birch,  Halket,  Naudet,  Laing,  Cogs 
well,  Jones,  Pertz,  and  Tod,  is  the  race  of  learned 
librarians  likely  to  decay. 

It  will  be  worth  while  for  the  patrons  of  public 
libraries,  even  in  appointments  to  small  offices,  to 
have  an  eye  on  bookish  men  for  filling  them.  One 
librarian  differs  greatly  from  another,  and  on  this 
difference  will  often  depend  the  entire  utility  of  the 
institution,  and  the  question  whether  it  is  worth 
keeping  it  open  or  closing  its  door.  Of  this  class 
of  workmen  it  may  be  said  quite  as  aptly  as  of  the 
poet,  nascitur,  non  fit.  The  usual  testimonies  to 
qualification  —  steadiness,  sobriety,  civility,  intelli 
gence,  &c.  —  may  all  be  up  to  the  mark  that  will 
constitute  a  first-rate  book-keeper  in  the  mercantile 
sense  of  the  term,  while  they  are  united  in  a  very 
dreary  and  hopeless  keeper  of  books.  Such  a  per 
son  ought  to  go  to  his  task  with  something  totally 
different  from  the  impulses  which  induce  a  man  to 
sort  dry  goods  or  make  up  invoices,  with  eminent 
success.  In  short,  your  librarian  would  need  to  be 
in  some  way  touched  with  the  malady  which  has 
been  the  object  of  these  desultory  remarks. 


PART  III.  — HIS   CLUB. 

Club0  in  ©cncraL 

|X  author  of  the  last  generation,  pro 
fessing  to  deal  with  any  branch  of 
human  affairs,  if  he  were  ambitious 
of  being  considered  philosophical,  re 
quired  to  go  at  once  to  the  beginning 
of  all  things,  where,  finding  man  alone  in  the  world, 
he  would  describe  how  the  biped  set  about  his  own 
special  business,  for  the  supply  of  his  own  wants 
and  desires ;  and  then  finding  that  the  human  being 
was,  by  his  instincts,  not  a  solitary  but  a  social 
animal,  the  ambitious  author  would  proceed  in  well- 
balanced  sentences  to  describe  how  men  aggregated 
themselves  into  hamlets,  villages,  towns,  cities,  coun 
ties,  parishes,  corporations,  select  vestries,  and  so 
on.  I  find  that,  without  the  merit  of  entertaining 
any  philosophical  views,  I  have  followed,  uncon 
sciously,  the  same  routine.  Having  discussed  the 
book-hunter  as  he  individually  pursues  his  object, 
I  now  propose  to  look  in  upon  him  at  his  club,  and 
say  something  about  its  peculiarities,  as  the  shape 
in  which  he  takes  up  the  pursuit  collectively  with 
others  who  happen  to  be  like-minded  to  himself. 


CLUBS  IN  GENERAL.  241 

Those  who  are  so  very  old  as  to  remember  the 
Episcopal  Church  of  Scotland,  in  that  brief  period 
of  stagnant  depression,  when  the  repeal  of  the  penal 
laws  had  removed  from  her  the  lustre  of  martyr 
dom,  and  she  had  not  yet  attained  the  more  secular 
lustre  which  the  zeal  of  her  wealthy  votaries  has 
since  conferred  on  her,  will  be  familiar  with  the 
name  of  Bishop  Robert  Jolly.  To  the  ordinary 
reader,  however,  it  may  be  necessary  to  introduce 
him  more  specifically.  He  was  a  man  of  singular 
purity,  devotedness,  and  learning.  If  he  had  no 
opportunity  of  attesting  the  sincerity  of  his  faith  by 
undergoing  stripes  and  bondage  for  the  Church  of 
his  adoption,  he  developed  in  its  fulness  that  unob 
trusive  self-devotion,  not  inferior  to  martyrdom, 
which  dedicates  to  obscure  duties  the  talent  and 
energy  that,  in  the  hands  of  the  selfish  and  ambi 
tious,  would  be  the  sure  apparatus  of  wealth  and 
station.  He  had  no  doubt  risen  to  an  office  of 
dignity  in  his  own  Church  —  he  was  a  bishop.  But 
to  understand  the  position  of  a  Scottish  bishop  in 
those  days,  one  must  figure  Parson  Adams,  no 
richer  than  Fielding  has  described  him,  yet  incum- 
bered  by  a  title  ever  associated  with  wealth  and 
dignity,  and  only  calculated,  wrhen  allied  with  so 
much  poverty  and  social  humility,  to  deepen  the 
incongruity  of  his  lot,  and  throw  him  more  than 
ever  on  the  mercy  of  the  scorner.  The  office  was 
indeed  conspicuous,  not  by  its  dignities  or  emolu 
ments,  but  by  the  extensive  opportunities  it  afford 
ed  for  self-devotion.  One  may  have  noticed  his 

16 


242  HIS  CLUB. 

successor  of  the  present  day  figuring  in  newspaper 
paragraphs  as  "  The  Lord  Bishop  of  Moray  and 
Ross."  It  did  not  fall  to  the  lot  of  him  of  whom 
I  write  to  render  his  title  so  flagrantly  incongruous. 
A  lordship  was  not  necessary,  but  it  was  the  prin 
ciple  of  his  Church  to  require  a  bishop,  and  in  him 
she  got  a  bishop.  In  reality,  however,  he  was  the 
parish  clergyman  of  the  small  and  poor  remnant 
of  the  Episcopal  persuasion  who  inhabited  the  odo 
riferous  fishing-town  of  Fraserburgh.  There  he 
lived  a  long  life  of  such  simplicity  and  abstinence 
as  the  poverty  of  the  poorest  of  his  flock  scarcely 
drove  them  to.  He  had  one  failing  to  link  his  life 
with  this  nether  world  —  he  was  a  book-hunter. 
How  with  his  poor  income,  much  of  which  went  to 
feed  the  necessities  of  those  still  poorer,  he  should 
have  accomplished  anything  in  a  pursuit  generally 
considered  expensive,  is  among  other  unexplained 
mysteries.  But  somehow  he  managed  to  scrape 
together  a  curious  and  interesting  collection,  so  that 

O  O 

his  name  became  associated  with  rare  books,  as  well 
as  with  rare  Christian  virtues. 

When  it  was  proposed  to  establish  an  institution 
for  reprinting  the  works  of  the  fathers  of  the  Epis 
copal  Church  in  Scotland,  it  was  naturally  deemed 
that  no  more  worthy  or  characteristic  name  could 
be  attached  to  it  than  that  of  the  venerable  prelate 
who,  by  his  learning  and  virtues,  had  so  long 
adorned  the  episcopal  chair  of  Moray  and  Ross, 
and  who  had  shown  a  special  interest  in  the  de 
partment  of  literature  to  which  the  institution  was 


CLUBS  IN  GENERAL.  243 

to  be  devoted.  Hence  it  came  to  pass  that,  through 
a  perfectly  natural  process,  the  association  for  the 
purpose  of  reprinting  the  works  of  certain  old  di 
vines  was  to  be  ushered  into  the  world  by  the  style 
and  title  of  THE  JOLLY  CLUB. 

There  happened  to  be  among  those  concerned, 
however,  certain  persons  so  corrupted  with  the 
wisdom  of  this  world,  as  to  apprehend  that  the 
miscellaneous  public  might  fail  to  trace  this  desig 
nation  to  its  true  origin,  and  might  indeed  totally 
mistake  the  nature  and  object  of  the  institution, 
attributing  to  it  aims  neither  consistent  with  the 
ascetic  life  of  the  departed  prelate,  nor  with  the 
pious  and  intellectual  objects  of  its  founders.  The 
counsels  of  these  worldly-minded  persons  prevailed. 
The  Jolly  Club  was  never  instituted,  —  at  least  as 
an  association  for  the  reprinting  of  old  books  of 
divinity,  though  I  am  not  prepared  to  say  that 
institutions  more  than  one  so  designed  may  not 
exist  for  other  purposes.  The  object,  however,  was 
not  entirely  abandoned.  A  body  of  gentlemen 
united  themselves  together  under  the  name  of  an 
other  Scottish  prelate,  whose  fate  had  been  more 
distinguished,  if  not  more  fortunate  ;  and  the  Spot- 
tiswoode  Society  was  established.  Here,  it  will 
be  observed,  there  was  a  passing  to  the  opposite 
extreme  ;  and  so  intense  seems  to  have  been  the 
anxiety  to  escape  from  all  excuse  for  indecorous 
jokes  or  taint  of  joviality,  that  the  word  Club, 
wisely  adopted  by  other  bodies  of  the  same  kind, 
was  abandoned,  and  this  one  called  itself  a  Society. 


944  ms  CLUB. 

To  that  abandonment  of  the  medio  tutissimus  has 
been  attributed  its  early  death  by  those  who  con 
temn  the  taste  of  those  other  communities,  essen 
tially  Book  Clubs,  which  have  taken  to  the  devious 
course  of  calling  themselves  "  Societies." 

In  fact,  all  our  societies,  from  the  broad-brimmed 
Society  of  Friends  downwards,  have  something  in 
them  of  a  homespun,  humdrum,  plain,  flat  —  not 
unprofitable,  perhaps,  but  unattractive  character. 
They  may  be  good  and  useful,  but  they  have  no 
dignity  or  ornament,  and  are  quite  destitute  of  the 
strange  meteoric  power  and  grandeur  which  have 
accompanied  the  career  of  Clubs.  Societies  there 
are,  indeed,  which  identify  themselves  through  their 
very  nomenclature  with  misfortune  and  misery, 
seeming  proudly  to  proclaim  themselves  victims  to 
all  the  saddest  ills  that  flesh  is  heir  to  —  as,  for 
instance,  Destitute  Sick  Societies,  Indigent  Blind 
Societies,  Deaf  and  Dumb  Societies,  Burial  Soci 
eties,  and  the  like.  The  nomenclature  of  some  of 
these  benevolent  institutions  seems  likely  to  test  the 
etymological  skill  of  the  next  generation  of  learned 
men.  Perhaps  some  ethnological  philosopher  will 
devote  himself  to  the  special  investigation  and  de 
velopment  of  the  phenomenon  ;  and  if  such  things 
are  done  then  in  the  way  in  which  they  are  now, 
the  result  will  appear  in  something  like  the  follow 
ing  shape :  - 

"  Man,  as  we  pursue  his  destiny  from  century  to 
century,  is  still  found  inevitably  to  resolve  himself 
into  a  connected  and  antithetic  series  of  consecutive 


CLUBS  IN  GENERAL.  245 

cycles.  The  eighteenth  century  having  been  an 
age  of  individuative,  the  nineteenth  necessarily  be 
came  an  age  of  associative  or  coinonomic  develop 
ment.  He,  the  man  —  to  himself  the  ego,  and  to 
others  the  mere  homo  —  ceased  to  revolve  around 
the  pivot  of  his  own  individual  idiosyncrasy,  and, 
following  the  instincts  of  his  nature,  resolved  him 
self  into  associative  community.  In  this  necessary 
development  of  their  nature  all  partook,  from  the 
congresses  of  mighty  monarchs  down  to  those  hum 
bler  but  not  less  majestic  types  of  the  predominant 
influence,  which,  in  the  expressive  language  of 
that  age,  were  recognized  as  twopenny  goes.  It 
is  known  only  to  those  whose  researches  have  led 
them  through  the  intricacies  of  that  phase  of  hu 
man  progress,  how  multifarious  and  varied  were 
the  forms  in  which  the  inner  spirit,  objectively  at 
work  in  mankind,  had  its  external  subjective  de 
velopment.  Not  only  did  associativeness  shake  the 
monarch  on  his  throne,  and  prevail  over  the  coun 
cils  of  the  assembled  magnates  of  the  realm,  but  it 
was  the  form  in  which  each  shape  and  quality  of 
humanity,  down  even  to  penury  and  disease,  en 
deavored  to  express  its  instincts  ;  and  so  the  blind 
and  the  lame,  the  deaf  and  dumb,  the  sick  and  poor, 
made  common  stock  of  their  privations,  and  endeav 
ored  by  the  force  of  union  to  convert  weakness  into 
strength,"  &c. 

When  the  history  of  clubs  is  fully  written,  let  us 
hope  that  it  will  be  in  another  fashion.  If  it  suffi 
ciently  abound  in  details,  such  a  history  would  be 


246  ms  CLUB. 

full  of  marvels,  from  the  vast  influences  which  it 
would  describe  as  arising  from  time  to  time  by 
silent  obscure  growth  out  of  nothing,  as  it  were. 
Just  look  at  what  clubs  have  been,  and  have  done ; 
a  mere  enumeration  is  enough  to  recall  the  impres 
sion.  Not  to  dwell  on  the  institutions  which  have 
made  Pall  Mall  and  its  neighborhood  a  conglome 
rate  of  palaces,  or  on  such  lighter  affairs  as  "  the 
Four-in-Hand,"  which  the  railways  have  left  be 
hind,  or  the  "  Alpine,"  whose  members  they  carry 
to  the  field  of  their  enjoyment :  there  was  the  Mer 
maid,  counting  among  its  members  Shakespeare, 
Raleigh,  Beaumont,  Fletcher,  and  Jonson;1  then 
came  the  King's  Head  ;  the  October ;  the  Kit-Cat ; 
the  Beaf-Steak  ;  the  Terrible  Calves  Head  ;  John 
son's  club,  where  he  had  Bozzy,  Goldie,  Burke,  and 
Reynolds  ;  the  Poker,  where  Hume,  Carlyle,  Fer 
guson,  and  Adam  Smith  took  their  claret. 

In  these,  with  all  their  varied  objects  —  literary, 
political,  or  convivial  —  the  one  leading  peculiarity 
was  the  powerful  influence  they  exercised  on  the 
condition  of  their  times.  A  certain  club  there  was 
with  a  simple  unassuming  name,  —  differing,  by  the 
way,  only  in  three  letters  from  that  which  would 
have  commemorated  the  virtues  of  Bishop  Jolly. 

1  [This  assertion,  so  often  made  as  to  be  generally  believed, 
has  not  an  iota  of  evidence  to  sustain  it.  There  is  no  proof 
whatever,  direct  or  indirect,  that  Shakespeare  was  ever  at 
the  Mermaid.  That  Raleigh  and  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  and 
Jonson  left  him  out  of  their  fellowship,  is,  indeed,  incredible ; 
and  so  in  spite  of  the  lack  of  proof,  I  with  the  rest  devoutly 
believe  that  they  all  drank  sack  at  the  Mermaid  together.  —  W.J 


STRUCTURE   OF  THE  BOOK  CLUBS.        247 

The  club  in  question,  though  nothing  in  the  eye  of 
the  country  but  an  easy  knot  of  gentlemen  who 
assembled  for  their  amusement,  cast  defiance  at  a 
sovereign  prince,  and  shook  the  throne  and  institu 
tions  of  the  greatest  of  modern  states.  But  if  we 
want  to  see  the  club  culminating  to  its  highest  pitch 
of  power,  we  must  go  across  the  water  and  saturate 
ourselves  with  the  horrors  of  the  Jacobin  clubs,  the 
Breton,  and  the  Feuillans.  The  scenes  we  will 
there  find  stand  forth  in  eternal  protest  against 
Johnson's  genial  definition  in  his  Dictionary,  where 
he  calls  a  club  "  an  assembly  of  good  fellows,  meet 
ing  under  certain  conditions." 


Structure  of  tlje  Book  (fflubs. 

HERE  has  been  an  addition,  by  no 
means  contemptible,  to  the  influence 
exercised  by  these  institutions  on  the 
course  of  events,  in  the  book  clubs,  or 
printing  clubs  as  they  are  otherwise  termed,  of  the 
present  day.  They  have  within  a  few  years  added 
a  department  to  literature.  The  collector,  who  has 
been  a  member  of  several,  may  count  their  fruit  by 
the  thousand,  all  ranging  in  symmetrical  and  portly 
volumes.  Without  interfering  either  with  the  au 
thor  who  seeks  in  his  copyrights  the  reward  of  his- 
genius  and  labor,  or  with  the  publisher  who  calcu 
lates  on  a  return  for  his  capital,  skill,  and  industry,. 


248  HIS  CLUB. 

the  book  clubs  have  ministered  to  literary  wants, 
which  these  legitimate  sources  of  supply  have  been 
unable  to  meet. 

I  hope  no  one  is  capable  of  reading  so  far  through 
this  book  who  is  so  grossly  ignorant  as  not  to  know 
that  the  book  clubs  are  a  set  of  associations  for  the 
purpose  of  printing  and  distributing  among  their 
members  certain  books,  calculated  to  gratify  the 
peculiar  taste  which  has  brought  them  together  and 
united  them  into  a  club.  An  opportunity  may  per 
haps  be  presently  taken  for  indulging  in  some  char 
acteristic  notices  of  the  several  clubs,  their  mem 
bers,  and  their  acts  and  monuments  :  in  the  mean 
time  let  me  say  a  word  on  the  utilitarian  efficiency 
of  this  arrangement  —  on  the  blank  in  the  order  of 
terrestial  things  which  the  book  club  was  required 
to  fill,  and  the  manner  in  which  it  has  accomplished 
its  function. 

There  is  a  class  of  books  of  which  the  production 
has  in  this  country  always  been  uphill  work ;  —  large 
solid  books,  more  fitted  for  authors  and  students  than 
for  those  termed  the  reading  public  at  large  —  books 
which  may  hence,  in  some  measure,  be  termed  the 
raw  materials  of  literature,  rather  than  literature 
itself.  They  are  eminently  valuable ;  but,  since  it 
is  to  the  intellectual  manufacturer  who  is  to  pro 
duce  an  article  of  salable  literature  that  they  are 
valuable,  rather  than  to  the  general  consumer,  they 
do  not  secure  an  extensive  sale.  Of  this  kind  of 
literature  the  staple  materials  are  old  state  papers 
and  letters,  old  chronicles,  specimens  of  poetic,  dra- 


STRUCTURE  OF  THE  BOOK  CLUBS.       249 

matic,  and  other  literature  —  more  valuable  as  ves 
tiges  of  the  style  and  customs  of  their  age  than  for 
their  absolute  worth  as  works  of  genius  —  massive 
volumes  of  old  divinity,  disquisitions  on  obsolete 
science,  and  the  like. 

It  is  curious,  by  the  way,  that  costly  books  of  this 
sort  seem  to  succeed  better  with  the  French  than 
with  us,  though  we  do  not  generally  give  that  peo 
ple  credit  for  excelling  us  in  the  outlay  of  money. 
Perhaps  it  is  because  they  enjoy  the  British  market 
as  well  as  their  own  that  they  are  enabled  to  excel 
us ;  but  they  certainly  do  so  in  the  publication, 
through  private  enterprise,  of  great  costly  works, 
having  a  sort  of  national  character.  The  efforts  to 
rival  them  in  this  country  have  been  considerable 
and  meritorious,  but  in  many  instances  signally  un 
fortunate.  Take,  for  instance,  the  noble  edition  of 
Holingshed  and  the  other  chroniclers,  published  in 
quarto  volumes  by  the  London  trade  ;  the  Parlia 
mentary  History,  in  thirty-six  volumes,  each  con 
taining  about  as  much  reading  as  Gibbon's  Decline 
and  Fall ;  The  State  Trials  ;  Sadler's  and  Thur- 
low's  State  Papers ;  the  Harleian  Miscellany,  and 
several  other  ponderous  publications  of  the  same 
kind.  All  of  them  are  to  be  had  cheap,  some  at 
just  a  percentage  above  the  price  of  waste  paper. 
When  an  attempt  was  made  to  publish  in  the  Eng 
lish  language  a  really  thorough  Biographical  Dic 
tionary,  an  improvement  on  the  French  Biographie 
Universelle,  it  stuck  in  letter  A,  after  the  comple 
tion  of  seven  dense  octavo  volumes  —  an  abortive 


250  HIS  CLUB. 

fragment,  bearing  melancholy  testimony  to  what 
such  a  work  ought  to  be.  Publications  of  this  kind 
have,  in  several  instances,  caused  great  losses  to 
some,  while  they  have  brought  satisfaction  to  no 
one  concerned  in  them.  A  publisher  has  just  the 
same  distaste  as  any  other  ordinary  member  of  the 
human  family  to  the  loss  of  five  or  ten  thousand 
pounds  in  hard  cash.  Then,  as  touching  the  pur 
chasers, —  no  doubt  the  throwing  of  "a  remnant" 
on  the  market  may  sometimes  bring  the  book  into 
the  possession  of  one  who  can  put  it  to  good  use, 
and  would  have  been  unable  to  purchase  it  at  the 
original  price.  But  the  rich  deserve  some  consid 
eration  as  well  as  the  poor.  It  will  be  hard  to  find 
the  man  so  liberal  and  benevolent  that  he  will  joy 
fully  see  his  neighbor  obtain  for  thirty  shillings  the 
precise  article  for  which  he  has  himself  paid  thirty 
pounds  ;  nor  does  there  exist  the  descendant  of 
Adam  who,  whatever  he  may  say  or  pretend,  will 
take  such  an  antithesis  with  perfect  equanimity. 
Even  the  fortunate  purchasers  of  portions  of  "  the 
remnant,"  or  "  the  broken  book,"  as  another  pleas 
ant  technicality  of  the  trade  has  it,  are  not  always 
absolutely  happy  in  their  lot.  They  have  been 
tempted  by  sheer  cheapness  to  admit  some  bulky 
and  unwieldy  articles  into  their  abodes,  and  they 
look  askance  at  the  commodity  as  being  rather 
a  sacrifice  to  mammon  than  a  monument  of  good 
taste. 

It  has  been  the  object  of  the  machinery  here  re 
ferred  to,  to  limit  the  impressions  of  such  works  to 


STRUCTURE  OF  THE  BOOK  CLUBS.        251 

those  who  want  and  can  pay  for  them  —  an  ex 
tremely  simple  object,  as  all  great  ones  are.  There 
is,  however,  a  minute  nicety  in  the  adjustment  of 
the  machinery,  which  was  not  obvious  until  it 
came  forth  in  practice  —  a  nicety  without  which 
the  whole  system  falls  to  pieces.  It  was  to  accom 
plish  this  nicety  that  the  principle  of  the  club  was 
found  to  be  so  well  adapted.  A  club  is  essentially 
a  body  to  which  more  people  want  admission  than 
can  gain  it ;  if  it  do  not  manage  to  preserve  this 
characteristic,  it  falls  to  pieces  for  want  of  pressure 
from  without,  like  a  cask  divested  of  its  hoops. 
To  make  the  books  retain  their  value,  and  be  an 
object  of  desire,  it  was  necessary  that  the  impres 
sions  should  be  slightly  within  the  natural  circula 
tion  —  that  there  should  be  rather  a  larger  number 
desirous  of  obtaining  each  volume  than  the  number 
that  could  be  supplied  with  it.  The  club  effected 
this  by  its  own  natural  action.  So  long  as  there 
were  candidates  for  vacancies  and  the  ballot-box 
went  round,  so  long  were  the  books  printed  in  de 
mand  and  valuable  to  their  possessors.  If  there 
were  110  or  120  people  willing  to  possess  and  pay 
for  a  certain  class  of  books,  the  secret  of  keeping 
up  the  pressure  from  without  and  the  value  of  the 
books  was,  to  limit  the  number  of  members  and 
participators  to  100.  There  is  nothing  noble  or 
disinterested  in  this.  The  arrangement  has  no 
pretension  to  either  of  these  qualities  ;  nor  when 
we  come  to  the  great  forces  which  influence  the 
supply  and  demand  of  human  wants,  whether  in 


252  HI$  CLUB. 

the  higher  or  the  humbler  departments,  will  we 
find  these  qualities  in  force,  or  indeed  any  other 
motive  than  common  selfishness.  It  is  a  sufficient 
vindication  of  the  arrangement  that  it  produced  its 
effect.  If  there  were  ten  or  twenty  disappointed 
candidates,  the  hundred  were  possessed  of  the 
treasures  which  none  could  have  obtained  but  for 
the  restrictive  arrangements.  Scott  used  to  say 
that  the  Bannatyne  Club  was  the  only  successful 
joint-stock  company  he  ever  invested  in  —  and  the 
remark  is  the  key-note  of  the  motives  which  kept 
alive  the  system  that  has  done  so  much  good  to 
literature. 

To  understand  the  nature  and  services  of  these 
valuable  institutions,  it  is  necessary  to  keep  in  view 
the  limits  within  which  alone  they  can  be  legiti 
mately  worked.  They  will  not  serve  for  the  prop 
agation  of  standard  literature  —  of  the  books  of 
established  reputation,  which  are  always  selling. 
These  are  merchandise,  and  must  follow  the  law  of 
trade  like  other  commodities,  whether  they  exist  in 
the  form  of  copyright  monopolies,  or  are  open  to  all 
speculators.  No  kind  of  cooperation  will  bring  the 
volumes  into  existence  so  cheaply  as  the  outlay  of 
trade  capital,  which  is  expected  to  replace  itself 
with  a  moderate  profit  after  a  quick  sale.  The 
perfection  of  this  process  is  seen  in  the  production 
and  sale  of  that  book  which  is  ever  the  surest  of  a 
market  —  the  Bible  ;  and  when  a  printer  requires 
the  certain  and  instantaneous  return  of  his  outlay, 
that  is  the  shape  in  which  he  is  most  secure  of  ob 
taining  it. 


STRUCTURE  OF  THE  BOOK  CLUBS.        253 

On  the  other  hand,  the  clubs  will  not  avail  for 
ushering  into  the  world  the  books  of  fresh  ambitious 
authors.     That  paradise  of  the  geniuses,  in  which 
their  progeny  are  to  be  launched  full  sail,  where 
they  are  to  encounter  no  risks,  and  draw  all  the 
profits  without  discount  or  percentage,  as  yet  exists 
only  in  the  imagination.     It  would  not  work  very 
satisfactorily  to   have  a  committee   decreeing   the 
issues,  and  the  remuneration   to  be  paid  to  each 
aspirant  —  ten    thousand     copies    of    Poppleton's 
Epic,  and  a  check  for  a  thousand  pounds  handed 
over  out  of  the   common   stock,  to  begin  with  — 
half  the  issue,  and  half  the  remuneration  for  the 
Lyrics  of  Astyagus,  as  a  less   robust  and  manful 
production,  but  still  a  pleasant,  murmuring,  mean 
dering,   earnest   little  dream-book,   fresh  with   the 
solemn   purpose  of  solitude   and   silence.      No,  it 
must  be  confessed  our  authors  and  men  of  letters 
would  make  sad  work  of  it,  if  they  had  the  be 
stowal    of  the   honors    and   pecuniary   rewards    of 
literature  in  their  hands,  whether  these  were  ad 
ministered  by  an  intellectual  hierarchy  or  by  a  col 
lective  democracy.      Hence  the  clubs  have  wisely 
confined  their  operations  to  books  which  are  not 
the  works  of  their  members  ;  and  to  keep  clear  of 
all  risk  of  literary  rivalries,  they  have  been  almost 
exclusively    devoted    to    the    promulgation    of  the 
works   of   authors    long    since    dead,   whether   by 
printing   from    original   manuscripts   or  from  rare 
printed  volumes. 

It  has  been  pleaded  that  this  machinery  might 


254  BIS  CLUB. 

have  been  rendered  influential  for  the  encourage 
ment  of  living  authorship.  It  has  been,  for  in 
stance,  observed,  with  some  plausibility,  that  he 
who  has  the  divine  fervor  of  the  author  in  him,  will 
sacrifice  all  he  has  to  sacrifice  —  time,  toil,  and 
health  —  so  that  he  can  but  secure  a  hearing  by  the 
world ;  and  institutions  of  the  nature  of  the  book 
clubs  might  afford  him  this  at  all  events,  leaving 
him  to  find  his  way  to  wealth  and  honors,  if  the 
sources  of  these  are  in  him.  No  doubt  the  history 
of  book-publishing  shows  how  small  are  the  imme 
diate  inducements  and  the  well-founded  hopes  that 
will  set  authors  in  motion,  and,  indeed,  a  very  large 
percentage  of  valueless  literature  proves  that  the 
barriers  between  the  author  and  the  world  are  not 
very  formidable,  or  become  somehow  easily  remov 
able.  This,  in  fact,  furnishes  the  answer  to  the 
pleading  here  alluded  to ;  and  it  may  further  be 
safely  said,  where  the  book  demanding  an  introduc 
tion  professes  to  be  a  work  of  genius,  addressing 
itself  to  all  mankind,  that  if  it  really  be  what  it 
professes,  the  market  will  get  it.  No  production  of 
the  kind  is  liable  to  be  lost  to  the  world. 

Here  it  is  plaintively  argued  by  Philemon,  that 
the  rewards  of  genius  are  very  unequally  distributed. 
Who  can  deny  it  ?  Nothing  is  distributed  with  per 
fect  balance  like  chemical  equivalents  in  this  world, 
at  least  so  far  as  mortal  faculties  are  capable  of  es 
timating  the  elements  of  happiness  and  unhappiness 
in  the  lot  of  our  fellow-men  ;  nor  can  one  imagine 
that  a  world,  all  balanced  and  squared  off  to  per- 


STRUCTURE  OF  THE  BOOK  CLUBS.         255 

fection,  would  be  a  very  tolerable  place  to  live  in. 
Genius  must  take  its  chance,  like  all  other  qualities, 
and,  on  the  whole,  in  a  civilized  country  it  gets  on 
pretty  well.  Is  it  not  something  in  itself  to  possess 
genius  ?  and  is  it  seemly,  or  a  good  example  to  the 
uninspired  world,  that  its  owner  should  deem  it 
rather  a  misfortune  than  a  blessing  because  he  is 
not  also  surrounded  by  plush  and  shoulder-knots  ? 
If  all  geniuses  had  a  prerogative  right  to  rank  and 
wealth,  and  all  the  pomps  and  vanities  of  this  wicked 
world,  could  we  be  sure  that  none  but  genuine 
geniuses  would  claim  them,  and  that  there  would 
be  no  margin  for  disputation  with  "solemn  shams"? 
Milton's  fifteen  pounds  are  often  referred  to  by  him 
who  finds  how  hard  it  is  to  climb,  &c.  ;  but  we 
have  no  "  return,"  as  the  blue-books  call  it,  of  all 
the  good  opportunities  afforded  to  intellects  ambi 
tious  of  arising  as  meteors  but  only  showing  them 
selves  as  farthing  rush-lights.  On  the  other  hand, 
no  doubt,  the  wide  fame  and  the  rich  rewards  of 
the  popular  author  are  not  in  every  instance  an  ex 
act  measure  of  his  superiority  to  the  disappointed 
aspirant.  His  thousand  pounds  do  not  furnish 
incontrovertible  evidence  that  he  is  a  hundred 
times  superior  to  the  drudge  who  goes  over  as 
much  work  for  ten  pounds,  and  there  may  possibly 
be  some  one  making  nothing  who  is  superior  to 
both. 

Such  aberrations  are  incident  to  all  human  affairs; 
but  in  those  of  literature,  as  in  many  others,  they 
are  exceptional.  Here,  as  in  other  spheres  of  exer- 


2.V)  MS  CLUB. 

tion,  merit  will  in  the  general  case  get  its  own  in 
some  shape.  Indeed,  there  is  a  very  remarkable 
economic  phenomenon,  never,  as  it  occurs  to  ine, 
fully  examined,  which  renders  the  superfluous  suc 
cess  of  the  popular  author  a  sort  of  insurance  fund 
for  enabling  the  obscure  adventurer  to  enter  the 
arena  of  authorship,  and  show  what  he  is  worth. 
Political  economy  has  taught  us  that  those  old  bug 
bears  of  the  statute  law  called  forestallers  and 
regraters  are  eminent  benefactors,  in  as  far  as  their 
mercenary  instincts  enable  them  to  see  scarcity  from 
afar,  and  induce  them  to  "  hold  on  "  precisely  so 
long  as  it  lasts  but  no  longer,  since,  if  they  have 
stock  remaining  on  hand  when  abundance  returns, 
they  will  be  losers.  Thus,  through  the  regular 
course  of  trade,  the  surplus  of  the  period  of  abun 
dance  is  distributed  over  the  period  of  scarcity  with 
a  precision  which  the  genius  of  a  Joseph  or  a  Tur- 
got  could  not  achieve. 

The  phenomenon  in  the  publishing  world  to 
which  I  have  alluded  has  some  resemblance  to  this, 
and  comes  to  pass  in  manner  following.  The  con 
firmed  popular  author  whose  books  are  sure  to  sell 
is  an  object  of  competition  among  publishers.  If 
he  is  absolutely  mercenary,  he  may  stand  forth  in 
the  public  market  and  commit  his  works  to  that  one 
who  will  take  them  on  the  best  terms  for  the  author 
and  the  worst  for  himself,  like  the  contractor  who 
gives  in  the  lowest  estimate  in  answer  to  an  adver 
tisement  from  a  public  department.  Neither  under 
taking  holds  out  such  chances  of  gain  as  indepen- 


STRUCTURE   OF  THE   BOOK   CLUBS.        257 

dent  speculation  may  open,  and  thus  there  is  an  in 
ducement  to  the  enterprising  publisher  to  risk  his 
capital  on  the  doubtful  progeny  of  some  author  un 
known  to  fame,  in  the  hope  that  it  may  turn  out 
"  a  hit."  Of  the  number  of  books  deserving  a  bet 
ter  fate,  as  also  of  the  still  greater  number  deserv 
ing  none  better  than  the  fate  they  have  got,  which 
have  thus  been  published  at  a  dead  loss  to  the  pub 
lisher,  the  annals  of  bookselling  could  afford  a  mov 
ing  history. 

When  an  author  has  sold  his  copyright  for  a 
comparative  trifle,  and  the  book  turns  out  a  great 
success,  it  is  of  course  matter  of  regret  that  he  can 
not  have  the  cake  he  has  eaten.  This  is  one  side  of 
the  balance-sheet,  and  on  the  other  stands  the  debit 
account  of  the  author  who,  through  a  work  which 
proved  a  dead  loss  to  its  publisher,  has  made  a  repu 
tation  which  has  rendered  his  subsequent  books 
successful,  and  made  himself  fashionable  and  rich. 
There  have  been  instances  where  publishers  who 
have  bought  for  little  the  copyright  of  a  successful 
book  have  allowed  the  author  to  participate  in  their 
gains  ;  and  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  these  in 
stances  are  fully  as  numerous  as  those  in  which  an 
author,  owing  his  reputation  and  success  to  a  book 
which  did  not  pay  its  expenses,  has  made  up  the 
losses  of  his  first  publisher. 

If  we  go  out  of  the  hard  market  and  look  at  the 

tendency  of  sympathies,  they  are  all  in  the  author's 

favor.     Publishers,  in  fact,  have,  though  it  is  not 

generally  believed,  a  leaning  towards  good  litera- 

17 


258  BIS  CLUB. 

ture,  and  a  tendency  rather  to  over  than  to  under 
estimate  the  reception  it  may  meet  with  from  the 
world.  In  considering  whether  they  will  take  the 
risk  of  a  new  publication,  they  have  nothing  to 
judge  of  it  by  except  its  literary  merit,  for  they 
cannot  obtain  the  votes  of  the  public  until  they  are 
committed  ;  and,  indeed,  there  have  been  a  good 
many  instances  where  a  publisher,  having  a  faith 
in  some  individual  author  and  his  star,  has  pushed 
and  fought  a  way  for  him  with  dogged  and  deter 
mined  perseverance,  sometimes  with  a  success  of 
which,  were  all  known,  he  has  more  of  the  real 
merit  than  the  author,  who  seems  to  have  natu 
rally,  without  any  external  aid,  taken  his  position 
among  the  eminent  and  fortunate. 

There  are,  at  the  same  time,  special  disquisitions 
on  matters  of  science  or  learning  intended  for  pecul 
iar  and  limited  audiences,  which  find  their  way  to 
publicity  without  the  aid  of  the  publisher.  For 
these  there  is  an  opening  in  certain  institutions  far 
older  than  the  book  clubs,  and  possessed  of  a  far 
higher  social  and  intellectual  position,  since  they 
have  the  means  of  conferring  titles  of  dignity  on 
those  they  adopt  into  their  circle  —  titles  which  are 
worn  not  by  trinkets  dangling  at  the  button-hole, 
but  by  certain  cabalistic  letters  strung  to  the  name 
in  the  directory  of  the  town  where  the  owner  lives, 
or  in  the  numberless  biographical  dictionaries  which 
are  to  immortalize  the  present  generation.  So  the 
author  of  an  essay,  especially  in  scholarship  or  sci 
ence,  will,  if  it  be  worth  anything,  find  a  place  for 


STRUCTURE  OF  THE  BOOK  CLUBS.        259 

it  in  the  Transactions  of  one  or  other  of  the  learned 
societies.  It  will  probably  keep  company  with,  if 
indeed  it  be  not  itself  one  of,  a  series  of  papers 
which  appear  in  the  quarto  volumes  of  the  learned 
corporation's  Transactions,  merely  because  they 
cannot  get  into  the  octavo  pages  of  the  higher  class 
of  periodicals  ;  but  there  they  are,  printed  in  the 
face  of  the  world,  whose  inhabitants  at  large  may 
worship  them  if  they  so  please,  and  their  authors 
cannot  complain  that  they  are  suppressed.  Whether 
the  authors  of  these  papers  may  have  been  ambi 
tious  of  their  appearance  in  a  wider  sphere,  or  are 
content  with  their  appearance  in  "  The  Transac 
tions,"  it  suffices  for  the  present  purpose  to  explain 
how  these  volumes  are  a  more  suitable  receptacle 
than  those  printed  by  the  book  clubs  for  essays  or 
disquisitions  by  men  following  up  their  own  special 
ties  in  literature  or  science ;  and  if  it  be  the  case 
that  some  of  the  essays  which  appear  in  the  Trans 
actions  of  learned  bodies  would  have  gladly  entered 
society  under  the  auspices  of  some  eminent  period 
ical,  yet  it  is  proper  at  the  same  time  to  admit  that 
many  of  the  most  valuable  of  these  papers,  concern 
ing  discoveries  or  inventions  which  adepts  alone  can 
appreciate,  could  only  be  satisfactorily  published  as 
they  have  been.  And  so  we  find  our  way  back  to 
the  proposition,  that  the  book  clubs  have  been  judi 
ciously  restricted  to  the  promulgation  of  the  works 
of  dead  authors. 

This  has  not  necessarily  excluded  the  literary 
contributions  of  living  men,  in  the  shape  of  editing 


260  HIS  CLUB. 

and  commenting  ;  and  it  is  really  difficult  to  esti 
mate  the  quantity  of  valuable  matter  which  is  thus 
deposited  in  obscure  but  still  accessible  places.  A 
deal  of  useful  work,  too,  has  been  done  in  the  way 
of  translation  ;  and  where  the  book  to  be  dealt  with 
is  an  Icelandic  saga,  a  chronicle  in  Saxon,  in  Irish 
Celtic,  or  even  in  old  Norman,  one  may  confess  to 
the  weakness  of  letting  the  original  remain,  in  some 
instances,  unexamined,  and  drawing  one's  informa 
tion  with  confiding  gratitude  from  the  translation 
furnished  by  the  learned  editor. 

Let  me  offer  one  instance  of  the  important  ser 
vice  that  may  be  done  by  affording  a  vehicle  for 
translations.  The  late  Dr.  Francis  Adams,  a  vil 
lage  surgeon  by  profession,  was  at  the  same  time, 
from  taste  and  pursuit,  a  profound  Greek  scholar. 
He  was  accustomed  to  read  the  old  authors  on 
medicine  and  surgery  —  a  custom  too  little  re 
spected  by  his  profession,  of  whom  it  is  the  char 
acteristic  defect  to  respect  too  absolutely  the  stand 
ard  of  the  day.  As  a  physician,  who  is  an  ornament 
to  his  profession  and  a  great  scholar,  once  observed 
to  me,  the  writings  of  the  old  physicians,  even  if  we 
reject  them  from  science,  may  be  perused  with  profit 
to  the  practitioner  as  a  record  of  the  diagnosis  of 
cases  stated  by  men  of  acuteness,  experience,  and 
accuracy  of  observation.  Adams  had  translated 
from  the  Greek  the  works  of  Paul  of  .2Egina,  the 
father  of  obstetric  surgery,  and  printed  the  first 
volume.  It  was  totally  unnoticed,  for  in  fact  there 
were  no  means  by  which  the  village  surgeon  could 


THE  ROXBURGHE  CLUB.  261 

get  it  brought  under  the  notice  of  the  scattered 
members  of  his  profession  who  desired  to  possess 
such  a  book.  The  remainder  of  his  labors  would 
have  been  lost  to  the  world  had  it  not  been  taken 
off  his  hands  by  the  Sydenham  Club,  established 
for  the  purpose  of  reprinting  the  works  of  the  an 
cient  physicians. 


(Jlub. 


RE  AT  institutions  and  small  institutions 
have  each  individually  had  a  beginning, 
though  it  cannot  always  be  discovered, 
distance  often  obscuring  it  before  it  has 
been  thought  worth  looking  after.      There  is  an 

?5  O 

ingenious  theory  abroad,  to  the  effect  that  every 
physical  impulse,  be  it  but  a  wave  of  a  human  hand, 
and  that  every  intellectual  impulse,  whether  it  pass 
through  the  mind  of  a  Newton  or  a  brickmaker, 
goes,  with  whatever  strength  it  may  possess,  into  a 
common  store  of  dynamic  influences,  and  tells  with 
some  operative  power,  however  imperceptible  and 
infinitesimal,  upon  all  subsequent  events,  great  or 
small,  so  that  everything  tells  on  everything,  and 
there  is  no  one  specific  cause,  primary  or  secondary, 
that  can  be  assigned  to  any  particular  event.  It 
may  be  so  objectively,  as  the  transcendentalists  say, 
but  to  common  apprehensions  there  are  specific  facts 
which  are  to  them  emphatic  as  beginnings,  such  as 


262  MS  CLUB. 

the  clay  when  any  man  destined  for  leadership  in 
great  political  events  was  born,  or  that  whereon  the 
Cape  of  Good  Hope  was  doubled,  or  America  was 
discovered. 

The  beginning  of  the  book  clubs  is  marked  by  a 
like  distinctness,  both  in  date  and  circumstance. 
The  institution  did  not  spring  in  full  maturity  and 
equipment,  like  Pallas  from  the  brain  of  Jove  ;  it 
was  started  by  a  casual  impulse,  and  remained  long 
insignificant ;  but  its  origin  and  early  progress  are 
as  distinctly  and  specifically  its  own,  as  the  birth 
and  infancy  of  any  hero  or  statesman  are  his.  It  is 
to  the  garrulity  of  Dibdin  writing  before  there  was 
any  prospect  that  this  class  of  institutions  would 
reach  their  subsequent  importance  and  usefulness, 
that  we  owe  many  minute  items  of  detail  about  the 
cradle  of  the  new  system.  We  first  slip  in  upon  a 
small  dinner-party,  on  the  4th  of  June  in  the  year 
1813,  at  the  table  of  "  Hortensius."  The  day  was 
one  naturally  devoted  to  hospitality,  being  the 
birthday  of  the  reigning  monarch,  George  III.,  but 
this  the  historian  passes  unnoticed,  the  object  of  all 
absorbing  interest  being  the  great  conflict  of  the 
Roxburgh  e  book  sale,  then  raging  through  its  forty- 
and-one  days.  Of  Hortensius,  it  is  needless  to  know 
more  than  that  he  was  a  distinguished  lawyer,  and 
•had  a  fine  library,  which  having  described,  Dibdin 
passes  on  thus  to  matters  of  more  immediate  im 
portance.  "  Nor  is  the  hospitality  of  the  owner  of 
these  treasures  of  a  less  quality  and  calibre  than  his 
taste  ;  for  Hortensius  regaleth  liberally  —  and  as 


THE  ROXBURGHE  CLUB.  263 

the  '  night  and  day  champagnes '  (so  he  is  pleased 
humorously  to  call  them)  sparkle  upon  his  Gottin- 
gen-manufactured  table-cloth,  4  the  master  of  the 
revels,'  or  (to  borrow  the  phraseology  of  Pynson) 
of  the  '  feste  royalle,'  discourseth  lustily  and  loudly 
upon  the  charms  —  not  of  a  full-curled  or  full-bot 
tomed  'King's  Bench'  periwig  —  but  of  a  full- 
margined  Bartholomaaus  or  Barclay  like  his  own."1 

After  some  forty  pages  of  this  sort  of  matter,  we 
get  another  little  peep  at  this  momentous  dinner 
party.  "  On  the  clearance  of  the  Gottingen-man- 
ufactured  table-cloth,  the  Roxburghe  battle  formed 
the  subject  of  discussion,  when  I  proposed  that  we 
should  not  only  be  all  present,  if  possible,  on  the 
day  of  the  sale  of  the  Boccaccio,  but  that  we  should 
meet  at  some  '  fair  tavern  '  to  commemorate  the 
sale  thereof."  They  met  accordingly  on  the  17th 
of  June,  some  eighteen  in  number,  "  at  the  St. 
Albans  Tavern,  St.  Albans  Street,  now  Waterloo 
Place."  Surely  the  place  was  symbolical,  since  on 
the  18th  of  June,  three  years  afterwards,  the  battle 
of  Waterloo  was  fought  ;  and  as  the  importance 
attributed  to  the  contest  at  Roxburghe  House  on 
the  17th  procured  for  it  afterwards  the  name  of  the 
Waterloo  of  book-battles,  it  came  to  pass  that  there 
were  two  Waterloo  commemorations  treading  closely 
one  on  the  other's  heels. 

The  pecuniary  stake  at  issue,  and  the  consequent 
excitement  when  the  Valdarfer  Boccaccio  was 
knocked  off,  so  far  exceeded  all  anticipation,  that  at 
1  Bibliographical  Decameron,  vol.  iii.  p.  28. 


264  HIS  CLUB. 

the  festive  board  a  motion  was  made  and  carried  by 
acclamation,  for  meeting  on  the  same  day  and  in 
the  same  manner  annually.  And  so  the  Roxburghe 
Club,  the  parent  of  all  the  book  clubs,  came  into 
existence. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  its  origin  bears  a  curi 
ous  generic  resemblance  to  some  scenes  which  pro 
duce  less  elevating  results.  On  the  day  of  some 
momentous  race  or  cock-fight,  a  parcel  of  sporting 
devotees,  "regular  bricks,"  perhaps,  agree  to  cele 
brate  the  occasion  in  a  tavern,  and  when  the  hilar 
ity  of  the  evening  is  at  its  climax,  some  festive 
orator,  whose  enthusiasm  has  raised  him  to  the 
table,  suggests,  amidst  loud  hurrahs  and  tremen 
dous  table-rapping,  that  the  casual  meeting  should 
be  converted  into  an  annual  festival,  to  celebrate 
the  event  which  has  brought  them  together.  At 
such  an  assemblage,  the  list  of  toasts  will  probably 
include  Eclipse,  Cotherstone,  Mameluke,  Plenipo, 
the  Flying  Dutchman,  and  other  illustrious  quad 
rupeds,  along  with  certain  bipeds,  distinguished  in 
the  second  degree  as  breeders,  trainers,  and  riders, 
and  may  perhaps  culminate  in  "  the  turf  and  the 
stud  all  over  the  world."  With  a  like  appropriate 
reference  to  the  common  bond  of  sympathy,  the 
Roxburghe  toasts  included  the  uncouth  names  of 
certain  primitive  printers,  as  Valdarfer  himself, 
Pannartz,  Fust,  and  Schoeffher,  terminating  in 
"  The  cause  of  Bibliomania  all  over  the  world."  l 

1  As  of  other  influential  documents,  there  have  been  various 
versions  of  the  Roxburghe  list  of  toasts,  and  a  corresponding 


THE  ROXBURGHE   CLUB.  265 

The  club  thus  abruptly  formed  consisted  of 
affluent  collectors,  some  of  them  noble,  with  a 
sprinkling  of  zealous  practical  men,  who  assisted 

amount  of  critical  discussion,  which  leaves  the  impression  com 
mon  to  such  disputes,  that  this  important  manifesto  was  altered 
and  enlarged  from  time  to  time.  The  version  which  bears  the 
strongest  marks  of  completeness  and  authenticity,  was  found 
among  the  papers  of  Mr.  Hazlewood,  of  whom  hereafter.  It  is 
here  set  down  as  nearly  in  its  original  shape  as  the  printer  can 
give  it :  — 

©rber  of  Qt  (Eosto, 

STIje  Immortal  J&emorg  of 
SFolw  33ufee  of  3&oj:t)urQl)e. 

<£I)rfstopl)er  ValtJarfer,  IJvfnter  of  tte  Jiecameron  of  1471. 
(Kutemfaerg,  JFust,  antr  Scjoefifter,  tj)e  Jmbentors  of  tJje  &rt 

of  $rfntmg. 

CEffllfam  €ar.tott,  tije  jfatfter  ot  tfje  33rftfsf)  $ress. 
23ame  Sultana  Barnes,  anu  t^e  St.  ^Iftans  3Pcess. 
n  Uc  (E^ortie,  anU  2^tcl)arU  SPam3011'  t^e  KHustrious 
Successors  of  VZPflliam  Clapton. 
2T|)e  ^lOCne  iFamt'I^,  at  Uentcr. 
2TJ)e  ^Jtunta  jFamil)?,  at  Florence. 

of  tjje  aStbltop|)Ues  at 
iirosjpmtj)  of  tje  aaopburflfje 
33fl)lfomanfa  all  ober  tfje 

It  will  be  seen  that  this  accomplished  black  letterer  must  have 
been  under  a  common  delusion,  that  our  ancestors  not  only  wrote, 
but  pronounced  the  definite  article  "  the  "  as  "  ye."  Every  blun 
derer  ambitious  of  success  in  fabricating  old  writings  is  sure  to 
have  recourse  to  this  trick,  which  serves  for  his  immediate  detec 
tion.  The  Gothic  alphabet,  in  fact,  as  used  in  this  country,  had 
a  Theta  for  expressing  in  one  letter  our  present  t  and  h  conjoined. 
When  it  was  abandoned,  some  printers  substituted  for  it  the  let 
ter  y  as  most  nearly  resembling  it  in  shape,  hence  the  "  ye  " 


20G  H*S  CLUB. 

them  in  their  great  purchases,  while  doing  minor 
strokes  of  business  for  themselves.  These  who  in 
some  measure  fed  on  the  crumbs  that  fell  from  the 
master's  table  were  in  a  position  rather  too  closely 
resembling  the  professionals  in  a  hunt  or  cricket 
club.  The  circle  was  a  very  exclusive  one,  how 
ever  ;  the  number  limited  to  thirty-one  members, 
"one  black  ball  excluding;"  and  it  used  to  be  re 
marked,  that  it  was  easier  to  get  into  the  Peerage 
or  the  Privy  Council  than  into  "  The  Roxburghe." 

which  occurs  sometimes  in  old  books,  but  much  more  frequently 
in  modern  imitations  of  them.* 

The  primitive  Roxburgheians  used  to  sport  these  toasts  as  a 
symbol  of  knowingness  and  high  caste  in  book-hunting  freema 
sonry.  Their  representative  man  happening  on  a  tour  in  the 
Highlands  to  open  his  refreshment  wallet  on  the  top  of  Ben 
Lomond,  pledged  his  guide  in  the  potent  vin  du  pays  to  Christo 
pher  Valdarfer,  John  Gutemberg,  and  the  others.  The  Celt  had 
no  objection  in  the  world  to  pledge  successive  glasses  to  these 
names,  which  he  had  no  doubt  belonged  "  to  fery  respectaple 
persons,"  probably  to  the  chief  landed  gentry  of  his  entertainer's 
neighborhood.  But  the  best  Glenlivet  would  not  induce  him  to 
pledge  "  the  cause  of  Bibliomania  all  over  the  world,"  being  un 
able  to  foresee  what  influence  the  utterance  of  words  so  unusual 
and  so  suspiciously  savoring  of  demonology  might  exercise  over 
his  future  destiny. 

*  [The  author  must  have  forgotten  for  the  moment  his  observations  during  his 
reading  of  old  books.  In  not  a  few  English  books  of  the  century  1500  the  use 
of  y  for  th  is  almost  invariable,  at  the  beginning  of  a  monosyllable  ;  and  from 
this  the  usage  varies  to  an  only  occasional  substitution  of  the  y.  It  seems  to 
me  that  Hazlewood's  list  of  the  Koxburghe  toasts  (so  dry  and  dusty  that  it  is 
not  surprising  that  such  oceans  of  claret  were  needed  to  wash  them  down) 
shows  that  he  knew  just  the  nature  and  the  reason  of  this  custom,  and  not 
that  he  supposed  "the"  used  to  be  pronounced  ye.  In  the  list  the  article 
occurs  many  times,  and  only  once  as  "ye."  How  did  he  pronounce  it  in  the 
other  instances  ?  Indeed,  it  is  quite  impossible  that  a  man  so  familiar  with  old 
books  us  Ilazlewood  was,  could  have  been  ignorant  upon  such  a  point.  —  W.J 


THE  ROXBURGIIE  CLUB.  267 

Nothing  has  done  so  much  to  secure  the  potent 
influence  of  clubs  as  the  profound  secrecy  in  which 
their  internal  or  domestic  transactions  have  gen 
erally  been  buried.  The  great  safeguard  of  this 
secrecy  will  be  found  in  that  rigid  rule  of  our  social 
code  which  prohibits  every  gentleman  from  making 
public  the  affairs  of  the  private  circle ;  and  if  from, 
lack  of  discretion,  as  it  is  sometimes  gently  termed, 
this  law  is  supposed  to  have  a  lax  hold  on  any  one, 
he  is  picked  off  by  the  "one,"  "two,"  "three  black 
balls."  It  is  singular  that  a  club  so  small  and  ex 
clusive  as  the  Roxburghe  should  have  proved  an 
exception  to  the  rule  of  secrecy,  and  that  the  world 
has  been  favored  with  revelations  of  its  doings 
which  have  made  it  the  object  of  more  amusement 
than  reverence.  In  fact,  through  failure  of  proper 
use  of  the  black  ball,  it  got  possession  of  a  black 
sheep,  in  the  person  of  a  certain  Joseph  Hazlewood. 
He  had  achieved  a  sort  of  reputation  in  the  book- 
hunting  community  by  discovering  the  hidden  au 
thor  of  Drunken  Barnaby's  Journal.  In  reality, 
however,  he  was  a  sort  of  literary  Jack  Brag.  As 
that  amusing  creation  of  Theodore  Hook's  practical 
imagination  mustered  himself  with  sporting  gentle 
men  through  his  command  over  the  technicalities 
or  slang  of  the  kennel  and  the  turf,  so  did  Hazle 
wood  sit  at  the  board  with  scholars  and  aristocratic 
book-collectors  through  a  free  use  of  their  technical 
phraseology.  In  either  case,  if  the  indulgence  in 
these  terms  descended  into  a  motley  grotesqueness, 
it  was  excused  as  excessive  fervor  carrying  the  en- 


268  HIS  CLUB. 

thusiast  off  his  feet.     When  Hazlewood's  treasures 

—  for  he  was  a  collector  in  his  way  —  were  brought 
to  the  hammer,  the  scraps  and  odds  and  ends  it  con 
tained  were  found  classified  in  groups  under  such 
headings  as  these  —  Garlands  of  Gravity,  Pover 
ty's  Pot  Pourri,  Wallat  of  Wit,  Beggar's  Baldar- 
dash,    Octagonal    Olio,    Zany's    Zodiac,    Noddy's 
Nuncheon,  Mumper's  Medley,  Quaffing  Quavers  to 
Quip  Queristers,  Tramper's  T wattle,  or  Treasure 
and   Tinsel  from  the   Tewksbury   Tank,  and  the 
like.      He  edited  reprints  of  some  rare  books  — 
that  is  to  say,  he  saw  them  accurately  reprinted 
letter  by  letter.     Of  these  one  has  a  name  which 

—  risking  due  castigation  if  I  betray  gross  igno 
rance  by  the  supposition  —  I  think  he  must  cer 
tainly  have  himself  bestowed  on  it,  as  it  excels  the 
most  outrageous  pranks  of  the  alliterative  age.     It 
is  called  "  Green-Room  Gossip  ;   or,  Gravity  Gal- 
linipt ;  A  Gallimaufry  got  up  to  guile  Gymnasti- 
cal  and  Gyneocratic  Governments  ;  Gathered  and 
garnished  by  Gridiron  Gabble,  Gent.,  Godson  to 
Mother  Goose." 

The  name  of  Joseph  Hazlewood  sounds  well ;  it 
is  gentleman-like,  and  its  owner  might  have  passed 
it  into  such  friendly  commemoration  as  that  of 
Bliss,  Cracherode,  Heber,  Sykes,  Utterson,  Town- 
ley,  Markland,  Hawtrey,  and  others  generally  un 
derstood  to  be  gentlemen,  and,  in  virtue  of  their 
bookish  propensities,  scholars.  He  might  even, 
for  the  sake  of  his  reprints,  have  been  thought  an 
"  able  editor,"  had  it  not  been  for  his  unfortunate 


THE  RO^LBURGHE  CLUB.  269 

efforts  to  chronicle  the  doings  of  the  club  he  had 
got  into.1      His   history,   in   manuscript,  was  sold 

1  A  voice  from  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic  reveals  the  por 
tentous  nature  of  the  machinery  with  which  Mr.  Hazlewood 
conducted  his  editorial  labors.  The  following  is  taken  from  the 
book  on  the  Private  Libraries  of  New  York,  already  so  freely 
quoted. 

"A  unique  book  of  unusual  interest  to  the  bibliophile  in  this 
department  is  the  copy  of  Ancient  and  Critical  Essays  upon 
English  Poets  and  Poesy,  edited  by  Joseph  Hazlewood,  2  vols. 
4to,  London,  1815.  This  is  Hazlewood's  own  copy,  and  it  is  en 
riched  and  decorated  by  him  in  the  most  extravagant  style  of 
the  bibliomaniac  school  in  which  he  held  so  eminent  a  position. 
It  is  illustrated  throughout  with  portraits,  some  of  which  are 
very  rare ;  it  contains  all  the  letters  which  the  editor  received  in 
relation  to  it  from  the  eminent  literary  antiquarians  of  his  day ; 
and  not  only  these,  but  all  the  collations  and  memoranda  of  any 
consequence  which  were  made  for  him  during  its  progress,  fre 
quently  by  men  of  literary  distinction.  To  these  are  added  all 
the  announcements  of  the  work,  together  with  the  impressions 
of  twelve  cancelled  pages,  printed  four  in  one  form  and  eight  in 
another,  apparently  by  way  of  experiment,  with  other  cancelled 
matter  ;  tracings  of  the  fac-simile  woodcuts  of  the  title  to  Putten- 
harn's  Arte  of  English  Poesie,  with  a  proof  of  it  on  India  paper, 
and  three  impressions  of  this  title,  one  all  in  black,  one  with  the 
letter  in  black  and  the  device  in  red,  and  the  third  vice  versa; 
tracings  for,  and  proofs  of,  other  woodcuts  ;  an  impression  of  a 
leaf  printed  to  be  put  into  a  single  copy  of  the  work,  &c.,  &c. ; 
for  we  must  stop,  although  we  have  but  indicated  the  nature 
rather  than  the  quantity  of  the  matter,  all  of  it  unique,  which 
gives  this  book  its  peculiar  value.  But  it  should  be  remarked 
besides,  that  the  editorial  part  of  the  work  is  interleaved  for  the 
purpose  of  receiving  Mr.  Hazlewood's  explanations  and  correc 
tions,  and  those  that  he  received  from  literary  friends,  which 
alone  would  give  this  copy  a  singular  interest.  It  is  bound  by 
Clarke,  in  maroon  morocco."* 

*  [These  volumes  (which  are  in  the  collection  of  the  editor  of  this  book)  cer 
tainly  show  a  disposition  on  the  part  of  the  man  who  made  them  to  have  his 


270 

with  his  other  treasures  after  his  death,  and  was 
purchased  by  the  proprietor  of  the  Athenaeum, 
where  fragments  of  it  were  printed  some  fifteen 
years  ago,  along  with  editorial  comments,  greatly 
to  the  amusement,  if  not  to  the  edification,  of  the 
public. 

In  these  revelations  we  find  how  long  a  probation 
the  system  of  book  clubs  had  to  pass  through,  before 
it  shook  off  the  convivial  propensities  which  con 
tinued  to  cluster  round  the  normal  notion  of  a  club, 
and  reached  the  dry  asceticism  and  attention  to  the 
duties  of  printing  and  editing,  by  which  the  greater 
number  of  book  clubs  are  distinguished.  It  was  at 
first  a  very  large  allowance  of  sack  to  the  proportion 

"nothings  monstered."  They  exhibit  a  perfect  picture  in  little  of  the  fu.«sy, 
finical  way  into  which  Dibdin  had  got  book -loving  people  fifty  years  ago.  And 
yet  we  must  remember  that  they  were  got  up  only  for  Ilazlewood's  own  private 
use  and  comfort.  It  is  true,  also,  that  the  examination  of  them  is  a  very  enter 
taining  process  to  those  who  take  an  interest  in  the  making  of  books.  We  see 
how  a  date  is  hunted  up  and  verified,  a  fact  established  ;  how  one  friend  was 
working  at  Oxford  in  the  Bodleian  to  help  the  editor  upon  this  point,  and  an 
other  in  his  own  antique  library  to  furnish  him  information  upon  the  other. 
We  see  how  one  of  a  humbler  rank  sat  up  all  night  to  do  the  heavy  task  of 
writing  out,  punctuatimet  literatim,  a  black-letter  tract,  that  the  press  might 
not  be  stopped.  We  see  the  trying  of  experiments,  the  rejection  of  plans,  and 
the  reasons  therefor;  and  in  fact  the  working  of  the  whole  machinery  which 
•was  set  a-going  to  produce  the  book  ;  —  and,  indeed,  much  else  beside.  Thus 
Ilazlewood's  folly,  if  we  must  call  it  so,  affords  us  some  not  irrational  pleasure. 
Hazlewood  was  an  obscure  but  reputable  solicitor,  who,  without  any  advan 
tages  of  early  education  or  of  pecuniary  success,  worked  his  way  to  a  very  con 
siderable  knowledge  of  old  English  literature  and  a  companionship  with  the 
eminent  black-letter  scholars  of  his  day.  lie  lived  in  a  somewhat  dependent 
position  with  a  crusty  old  uncle,  with  whom  he  had  not  a  feeling  in  common, 
and  who  allowed  him  two  little  closet-like  rooms  at  the  top  of  the  house,  which 
he  managed  to  fill  with  books  which  after  his  death  were  sold  for  £2500.  We 
owe  to  him,  among  other  things,  the  reprints  of  the  "Book  of  St.  Albans," 
';  The  Mirrour  for  Magistrates,"  and  "  The  Palace  of  Pleasure,"  together  with 
the  larger  part  of  "  The  Censura  Literaria."  Let  us  be  grateful  to  him  for 
what  he  did,  and  treat  his  foibles  as  we  would  have  others  treat  our 
own.  — W.] 


THE  ROXBURGHE  CLUB.  271 

of  literary  food,  and  it  was  sarcastically  remarked 
that  the  club  had  spent  a  full  thousand  pounds  in 
guzzling  before  it  had  produced  a  single  valuable 
volume.  We  have  some  of  the  bills  of  fare  at  the 
"  Roxburghe  Revels,"  as  they  were  called.  In  one, 
for  instance,  there  may  be  counted,  in  the  first 
course,  turtle  cooked  five  different  ways,  along  with 
turbot,  John  dory,  tendrons  of  lamb,  soutee  of  had 
dock,  ham,  chartreuse,  and  boiled  chickens.  The 
bill  amounted  to  £5  14s.  a  head ;  or,  as  Hazlewood 
expresses  it,  "according  to  the  long -established 
principles  of  '  Maysterre  Cockerre,'  each  person  had 
,£5  14s.  to  pay."  Some  illustrious  strangers  appear 
to  have  been  occasionally  invited  to  attend  the  sym 
posium.  If  the  luxurious  table  spread  for  them 
may  have  occasioned  them  some  surprise,  they  must 
have  experienced  still  more  in  the  tenor  of  the  in 
vitation  to  be  present,  which,  coming  in  the  name 
of  certain  "  Lions  of  literature,"  as  their  historian 
and  the  author  of  the  invitation  calls  them,  was 
expressed  in  these  terms  —  "The  honor  of  your 
company  is  requested  to  dine  wTith  the  Roxburghe 
dinner,  on  Wednesday  the  17th  instant." l  One 
might  be  tempted  to  offer  the  reader  a  fuller  speci- 

1  [The  author  has  yielded  himself  too  much  to  the  guidance 
of  the  editorial  comments  of  the  "  Athenaeum  "  which  he  previ 
ously  mentions,  —  an  exceedingly  dishonorable  and  malicious 
performance.  It  certainly  would  have  become  the  distinguished 
members  of  this  club,  the  "  revered  of  the  Roxburghe  "  as  Scott 
calls  them  in  "  Woodstock,"  to  look  a  little  more  carefully  after 
the  wording  of  the  invitation  to  their  dinners.  But  they  had 
no  hand  in  it;  neither  was  "their  historian,"  i.  e.  Hazlewood, 


272  BIS  CLUB. 

men  of  the  historian's  style  ;  but  unfortunately  its 
characteristics,  grotesque  as  they  are,  cannot  be 
exemplified  in  their  full  breadth  without  being  also 
given  at  full  length.  The  accounts  of  the  several 
dinners  read  like  photographs  of  a  mind  wandering 
in  the  mazes  of  indigestion-begotten  nightmare.1 

When  Dibdin  protested  against  the  publication 
of  this  record,  he  described  it  a  great  deal  too  at 
tractively  when  he  called  it  "  the  concoction  of  one 
in  his  gayer  and  unsuspecting  moments  —  the  re 
pository  of  private  confidential  communications  —  a 
mere  memorandum-book  of  what  had  passed  at  con- 

the  "author  of  the  invitation,"  by  which  people  were  asked  to 
dine  with  a  dinner.  The  author  was  the  keeper  of  the  tavern 
at  which  the  dinners  were  eaten !  See  Dibdin's  "  Reminis 
cences,"  1836,  Vol.  I.  p.  378,  —"and  Mr.  Richolds,  the  master 
of  the  hotel,  always  filled  up  his  printed  circulars  by  asking  us 
'  to  dine  with  the  Roxburgh?  dinner.'  "  —  W.] 

1  It  is  but  fair,  however,  to  a  reputation  which  was  consider 
able  within  its  own  special  circle,  to  let  the  reader  judge  for 
himself;  so,  if  he  think  the  opportunity  worth  the  trouble  of 
wading  through  small  print,  he  may  read  the  following  specimen 
of  Mr.  Hazlewood's  style.  He  would  certainly  himself  not  have 
objected  to  its  being  taken  as  a  criterion  of  the  whole,  since  he 
was  evidently  proud  of  it. 

"  Consider,  in  the  bird's-eye  view  of  the  banquet,  the  trencher 
cuts,  foh  !  nankeen  displays  :  as  intersticed  with  many  a  brilliant 
drop  to  friendly  beck  and  clubbish  hail,  to  moisten  the  viands  or 
cool  the  incipient  cayenne.  No  unfainished  livery-man  would 
desire  better  dishes,  or  high-tasted  courtier  better  wines.  With 
men  that  meet  to  commune,  that  can  converse,  and  each  willing 
to  give  and  receive  information,  more  could  not  be  wanting  to 
promote  well -tempered  conviviality  —  a  social  compound  of 
mirth,  wit,  and  wisdom ;  combining  all  that  Anacreon  was  tamed 
lor,  tempered  with  the  reason  of  Demosthenes,  and  intersected 


THE  ROXBURGHE  CLUB.  273 

vivial  meetings,  and  in  which  '  winged  words '  and 
flying  notes  of  merry  gentlemen  and  friends  were 
obviously  incorporated."  No  !  certainly  wings  and 
flying  are  not  the  ideas  that  naturally  associate  with 
the  historian  of  the  Roxburghe,  although,  in  one 
instance,  the  dinner  is  sketched  off  in  the  following 
epigrammatic  sentence,  which  startles  the  reader  like 
a  plover  starting  up  in  a  dreary  moor :  — "  Twenty- 
one  members  met  joyfully,  dined  comfortably,  chal 
lenged  eagerly,  tippled  prettily,  divided  regretfully, 
and  paid  the  bill  most  cheerfully."  On  another 
occasion  the  historian's  enthusiasm  was  too  expan- 


with  the  archness  of  Scaliger.  It  is  true,  we  had  not  any  Greek 
verses  in  praise  of  the  grape  ;  but  we  had,  as  a  tolerable  substi 
tute,  the  ballad  of  the  "  Bishop  of  Hereford  and  Kobin  Hood/' 
sung  by  Mr.  Dodd,  and  it  was  of  his  own  composing.  It  is  true, 
we  had  not  any  long  oration  denouncing  the  absentees,  the  cab 
inet  counsel,  or  any  other  set  of  men  ;  but  there  was  not  a  man 
present  that  at  one  hour  and  seventeen  minutes  after  the  cloth 
was  removed  but  could  have  made  a  Demosthenic  speech  far 
superior  to  any  record  of  antiquity.  It  is  true,  no  trace  of  wit  is 
going  to  be  here  preserved,  for  the  flashes  were  too  general,  and 
what  is  the  critical  sagacity  of  a  Scaliger  compared  to  our  chair 
man  ?  Ancients  believe  it !  We  were  not  dead  drunk,  and 
therefore  lie  quiet  under  the  table  for  once,  and  let  a  few  mod 
erns  be  uppermost." 

The  following  chronicle  of  the  tbird  dinner  and  second  anni 
versary  records  an  interesting  little  personal  incident :  — 

"  After  Lord  Spencer  left  the  chair,  it  was  taken,  I  believe,  by 
Mr.  Heber,  who  kept  it  up  to  a  late  hour,  —  Mr.  Dodd,  very 
volatile  and  somewhat  singular,  at  the  same  time  quite  novel,  in 
amusing  the  company  with  Robin  Hood  ditties  and  similar  pro 
ductions.  I  give  this  on  after  report,  having  left  the  room  very 
early  from  severe  attack  of  sickness,  which  appeared  to  originate 
in  some  vile  compound  partook  of  at  dinner." 
18 


274  HIS  CLUB. 

sive  to  be  confined  to  plain  prose,  and  he  inflated  it 
in  lyric  verse  :  — 

"  Brave  was  the  banquet,  the  red,  red  juice, 

Hilarity's  gift  sublime, 
Invoking  the  heart  to  kindred  use, 
And  bright'ning  halo  of  time." 

This,  and  a  quantity  of  additional  matter  of  like 
kind,  was  good  fun  to  the  scorners,  and,  whether 
any  of  the  unskilful  laughed  at  it,  scarcely  made 
even  the  judicious  grieve,  for  they  thought  that 
those  who  had  embarked  in  such  pompous  follies 
deserved  the  lash  unconsciously  administered  to 
them  in  his  blunders  by  an  unhappy  member  of 
their  own  order. 

In,  fact,  however,  this  was  the  youthful  giant 
sowing  his  wild  oats.  Along  with  them  there  lay 
also,  unseen  at  first,  the  seed  of  good  fruit.  Of  these 
was  a  resolution  adopted  at  the  second  meeting,  and 
thus  set  forth  by  the  historian  in  his  own  peculiar 
style  :  —  "It  was  proposed  and  concluded  for  each 
member  of  the  club  to  reprint  a  scarce  piece  of 
ancient  lore  to  be  given  to  the  members,  one  copy 
to  be  on  vellum  for  the  chairman,  and  only  as  many 
copies  as  members." 

The  earliest  productions  following  on  this  resolu 
tion  were  on  a  very  minute  scale.  One  member, 
stimulated  to  distinguish  himself  by  "  a  merry  con 
ceited  jest,"  reprinted  a  French  morsel  called  "  La 
Contenance  de  la  Table,"  and  had  it  disposed  of  in 
such  wise,  that  as  each  guest  opened  his  napkin 


THE  ROXBURGHE   CLUB.  275 

expecting  to  find  a  dinner-roll,  he  disclosed  the 
typographical  treasure ;  it  stands  No.  6  on  the  list 
of  Roxburghe  books,  and  is  probably  worth  an 
enormous  sum.  The  same  enthusiast  reprinted  in 
a  more  formal  manner  a  rarity  called  "  News  from 
Scotland,  declaring  the  damnable  life  of  Dr.  Fian, 
a  notable  sorcerer,"  &c.  This  same  morsel  was 
afterwards  reprinted  for  another  club,  in  a  shape 
calculated  almost  to  create  a  contemptuous  contrast 
between  the  infantine  efforts  of  the  Roxburghe  and^ 
the  manly  labors  of  its  robust  followers.  It  is  insert 
ed  as  what  the  French  call  a  piece  justificative  in 
Pitcairn's  Criminal  Trials,  edited  for  the  Bannatyne, 
and  there  occupies  ten  of  the  more  than  2000  pages 
which  make  up  that  solid  book. 

It  was  not  until  the  year  1827  that  a  step  was 
taken  by  the  Roxburghe  Club  which  might  be  called 
its  first  exhibition  of  sober  manhood.  Some  of  the 
members,  ashamed  of  the  paltry  nature  of  the  vol 
umes  circulated  in  the  name  of  the  club,  bethought 
themselves  of  uniting  to  produce  a  book  of  national 
value.  They  took  Sir  Frederick  Madden  into  their 
counsels,  and  authorized  him  to  print  eighty  copies 
of  the  old  metrical  romance  of  Havelok  the  Dane. 
This  gave  great  dissatisfaction  to  the  historian,  who 
muttered  how  "  a  MS.  not  discovered  by  a  member 
of  the  club  was  selected,  and  an  excerpt  obtained, 
not  furnished  by  the  industry  or  under  the  inspec 
tion  of  any  one  member,  nor  edited  by  a  member ; 
but,  in  fact,  after  much  pro  and  con,  it  was  made  a 
complete  hireling  concern,  truly  at  the  expense  of 
the  club,  from  the  copying  to  the  publishing." 


276  HIS  CLUB. 

The  value  of  this  book  has  been  attested  by  the 
extensive  critical  examination  it  has  received,  and 
by  the  serviceable  aid  it  has  given  to  all  recent 
writers  on  the  infancy  of  English  literature.  It 
was  followed  by  another  interesting  old  romance, 
William  and  the  Wer  Wolf,  valuable  not  only  as  a 
specimen  of  early  literature,  but  for  the  light  it 
throws  on  the  strange  wild  superstition  dealing  with 
the  conversion  of  men  into  wolves,  which  has  been 
found  so  widely  prevalent  that  it  has  received  a  sort 
of  scientific  title  in  the  word  Lycanthropy.  These 
two  books  made  the  reputation  of  the  Roxburghe, 
and  proved  an  example  and  encouragement  to  the 
clubs  which  began  to  arise  more  or  less  on  its 
model.  It  was  a  healthy  protest  against  the  Dib- 
dinism  which  had  ruled  the  destinies  of  the  club, 
for  Dibdin  had  been  its  master,  and  was  the  Gama 
liel  at  whose  feet  Hazlewood  and  others  patiently  sat. 
Of  the  term  now  used,  the  best  explanation  I  can 
give  is  this,  that  in  the  selection  of  books  —  other 
questions,  such  as  rarity  or  condition,  being  set 
aside,  or  equally  balanced  —  a  general  preference  is 
to  be  given  to  those  which  are  the  most  witless, 
preposterous,  and  in  every  literary  sense  valueless 
—  which  are,  in  short,  rubbish.  What  is  here 
meant  will  be  easily  felt  by  any  one  who  chooses 
to  consult  the  book  which  Dibdin  issued  under  the 
title  of  "  The  Library  Companion,  or  the  Young 
Man's  Guide  and  the  Old  Man's  Comfort  in  the 
Choice  of  a  Library."  This,  it  will  be  observed,  is 
not  intended  as  a  manual  of  rare  or  curious,  or  in 


THE   ROXBURGHE    CLUB.  277 

any  way  peculiar  books,  but  as  the  instruction  of  a 
Nestor  on  the  best  books  for  study  and  use  in  all 
departments  of  literature.  Yet  one  will  look  in 
vain  there  for  such  names  as  Montaigne,  Shaftes- 
bury,  Benjamin  Franklin,  D'Alembert,  Turgot, 
Adam  Smith,  Malebranche,  Lessing,  Goethe,  Schil 
ler,  Fenelon,  Burke,  Kant,  Richter,  Spinoza,  Flech- 
ier,  and  many  others.  Characteristically  enough,  if 
you  turn  up  Rousseau,  in  the  index  you  will  find 
Jean  Baptiste,  but  not  Jean  Jacques.  You  will 
search  in  vain  for  Dr.  Thomas  Reid,  the  metaphy 
sician,  but  will  readily  find  Isaac  Reed,  the  editor. 
If  you  look  for  Molinaaus  or  Du  Moulin,  it  is  not 
there,  but  alphabetic  vicinity  gives  you  the  good 
fortune  to  become  acquainted  with  "  Moule,  Mr., 
his  Bibliotheca  Heraldica."  The  name  Hooker 
will  be  found,  not  to  guide  the  reader  to  the  Ec 
clesiastical  Polity,  but  to  Dr.  Jackson  Hooker's 
Tour  in  Iceland.  Lastly,  if  any  one  shall  search 
for  Hartley  on  Man,  he  will  find  in  the  place  it 
might  occupy,  or  has  reference  to,  the  editorial 
services  of  "  Hazlewood,  Mr.  Joseph."  l 

1  [The  author  is  running  amok  against  Dibdin,  and  I  certainly 
shall  not  stand  in  his  way.  Dibdin's  "Library  Companion  "  is 
fairly  open  to  all  the  fault  he  finds  with  it ;  though  he  omits  say 
ing  that  in  spite  of  its  defects  and  its  offences  it  contains  a  great 
deal  of  information  which  is  really  valuable  to  the  book-buyer. 
But  there  is  yet  none  the  less  needed,  and  especially  in  this 
country,  a  hand-book  which  should  be  what  Dibdin's  work  pro 
fesses  to  be,  and  which  should  direct  the  young  student,  and 
protect  the  inexperienced  buyer  against  worthless  or  inferior 
editions,  guard  him  against  superseded  authors,  inform  him  of 
current  prices,  and  in  fact  enable  him  to  obtain,  without  paying 


278  ms  CLUB. 

Though  the  Roxbnrghe,  when  it  came  under  the 
fostering  care  of  the  scholarly  Botfield,  and  secured 
the  services  of  men  like  Madden,  Wright,  and  Tay 
lor,  outgrew  the  pedantries  in  which  it  had  been 
reared,  and  performed  much  valuable  literary  work, 
yet  its  chief  merit  is  in  the  hints  its  practice  afford 
ed  to  others.  The  leading  principle,  indeed,  which 
the  other  clubs  so  largely  adopted  after  the  example 
of  the  Roxburghe,  was  not  an  entire  novelty.  The 
idea  of  keeping  up  the  value  of  a  book  by  limiting 
the  impression,  so  as  to  restrain  it  within  the  num 
ber  who  might  desire  to  possess  it,  was  known  be 
fore  the  birth  of  this  the  oldest  book  club.  The 
practice  was  sedulously  followed  by  Hearne  the 
antiquary,  and  others,  who  provided  old  chronicles 
and  books  of  the  class  chiefly  esteemed  by  the  book- 
hunter.  The  very  fame  of  the  restricted  number, 
operating  on  the  selfish  jealousy  of  man's  nature, 
brought  out  competitors  for  the  possession  of  the 
book,  who  never  would  have  thought  of  it  but  for 
the  pleasant  idea  of  keeping  it  out  of  the  hands  of 
some  one  else. 

There  are  several  instances  on  record  of  an  un- 


•dearly  on  the  way,  the  best  books  upon  the  subjects  which  in 
terest  him.  Neither  a  Course  of  Heading,  nor  a  Manual  like 
Lowndes's  will  do  this.  The  book,  although  it  should  of  course 
be  somewhat  critical,  might  be  of  moderate  size  and  price ;  for 
it  should  of  course  be  limited  to  the  wants  of  people  generally 
who  have  literary  tastes  and  purposes,  but  who  have  no  time 
or  inclination  for  bibliography.  Such  folk  as  have  special  hob 
bies,  or  those  who  design  the  collection  of  great  libraries,  would 
not  need  its  help.  — W.J 


THE  ROXBURGHE  CLUB.  279 

known  book  lying  in  the  printer's  warerooms,  dead 
from  birth  and  forgotten,  having  life  and  importance 
given  to  it  by  the  report  that  all  the  copies,  save  a 
few,  have  been  destroyed  by  a  fire  in  the  premises. 
This  is  an  illustration  in  the  sibylline  direction  of 
value  being  conferred  by  the  decrease  of  the  com 
modity  ;  but  by  judiciously  adjusting  the  number  of 
copies  printed,  the  remarkable  phenomenon  has 
been  exhibited  of  the  rarity  of  a  book  being  in 
creased  by  an  increase  in  the  number  of  copies.  To 
understand  how  this  may  come  to  pass,  it  is  neces 
sary  to  look  on  rarity  as  not  an  absolute  and  ob 
jective  quality,  but  as  relative  to  the  number  who 
desire  to  possess  the  article.  Ten  copies  which  two 
hundred  people  want  constitute  a  rarer  book  than 
two  copies  which  twenty  people  want.  A  book 
may  be  the  sole  remaining  copy  —  in  technical  lan 
guage,  may  be  unique —  but  nobody  has  heard  of  it, 
and  nobody  wants  it,  so  it  stands  quietly  on  its  own 
shelf  uncoveted.  But  let  its  owrner  print,  say, 
twenty  copies  for  distribution  —  the  book-hunting 
community  have  got  the  "  hark-away,"  and  are  off 
after  it.  In  this  way,  before  the  days  of  the  clubs, 
many  knowing  people  multiplied  rarities  ;  and  at 
the  present  day  there  are  reprints  by  the  clubs 
themselves  of  much  greater  pecuniary  value  than 
the  rare  books  from  which  they  have  been  multi 
plied. 


280  HIS   CLUB. 


Some  Book-Club  flint. 

'O  one  probably  did  more  to  raise  the 
condition  of  the  book  clubs  than  Sir 
Walter  Scott.  In  1823  the  Roxburghe 
made  proffers  of  membership  to  him, 
partly,  it  would  seem,  under  the  influence  of  a  wag 
gish  desire  to  disturb  his  great  secret,  which  had 
not  yet  been  revealed.  Dibdin,  weighting  himself 
with  more  than  his  usual  burden  of  ponderous 
jocularity,  set  himself  in  motion  to  intimate  to 
Scott  the  desire  of  the  club  that  the  Author  of 
"VVaverley,  with  whom  it  was  supposed  that  he  had 
the  means  of  communicating,  would  accept  of  the 
seat  at  the  club  vacated  by  the  death  of  Sir  Mark 
Sykes.  Scott  got  through  the  affair  ingeniously 
with  a  little  coy  fencing  that  deceived  no  one,  and 
was  finally  accepted  as  the  Author  of  Waverley's 
representative.  The  Roxburghe  had,  however,  at 
that  time,  done  nothing  in  serious  book-club  busi 
ness,  having  let  loose  only  the  small  flight  of  flimsy 
sheets  of  letterpress  already  referred  to.  It  was 
Scott's  own  favorite  club,  the  Bannatyne,  that  first 
projected  the  plan  of  printing  substantial  and  valu 
able  volumes. 

At  the  commencement  of  the  same  year,  1823, 
when  he  took  his  seat  at  the  Roxburghe  (he  did  not 
take  his  bottle  there,  which  was  the  more  impor 
tant  object,  for  some  time  after),  he  wrote  to  the 


SOME   BOOK-CLUB   MEN.  281 

late  Robert  Pitcairn,  the  editor  of  the  Criminal 
Trials,  in  these  terms :  —  "I  have  long  thought 
that  a  something  of  a  bibliomaniacal  society  might 
be  formed  here,  for  the  prosecution  of  the  impor 
tant  task  of  publishing  dilettante  editions  of  our  na 
tional  literary  curiosities.  Several  persons  of  rank, 
I  believe,  would  willingly  become  members,  and 
there  are  enough  of  good  operatives.  What  would 
you  think  of  such  an  association  ?  David  Laing 
was  ever  keen  for  it ;  but  the  death  of  Sir  Alexan 
der  Boswell  and  of  Alexander  Oswald  has  damped 
his  zeal.  I  think,  if  a  good  plan  were  formed,  and 
a  certain  number  of  members  chosen,  the  thing 
would  still  do  well."  l 

Scott  gave  the  Bannatyners  a  song  for  their  fes 
tivities.  It  goes  to  the  tune  of  "  One  Bottle  More," 
and  is  a  wonderful  illustration  of  his  versatile  pow 
ers  in  the  admirable  bibulous  sort  of  joviality  which 
he  distils,  as  it  were,  from  the  very  dust  of  musty 
volumes.  Two  of  the  strangest  characters  that  lit 
erature  ever  produced,  or  who  ever  joined  the  book- 
hunt,  are  hit  off  in  the  following  stanzas  —  the 
snarling  Pinkerton,  and  Ritson,  who,  though  he 
had  lived  an  unbeliever,  in  eternal  quarrels  with 
the  rest  of  his  kind,  on  his  death-bed  found  just 
one  sin  to  repent  of — an  act  of  apostasy  to  his 
vegetarian  faith,  in  having,  when  tired  and  wet 
after  a  long  pedestrian  journey,  eaten  a  potato 
fried  in  fat :  — 

1  Notices  of  the  Bannatyne  Club,  privately  printed. 


282  HIS  CLUB. 

"  John  Pinkcrton  next,  and  I'm  truly  concerned 
I  can't  call  that  worthy  so  candid  as  learned  ; 
He  railed  at  the  plaid,  and  blasphemed  the  claymore, 
And  set  Scots  by  the  ears  in  his  one  volume  more. 
One  volume  more,  my  friends,  one  volume  more  — 
Celt  and  Scot  shall  be  pleased  with  one  volume  more. 

u  As  bitter  as  gall,  and  as  sharp  as  a  razor. 
And  feeding  on  herbs  as  a  Nebuchadnezzar, 
His  diet  too  acid,  his  temper  too  sour, 
Little  Ritson  came  out  with  his  two  volumes  more. 
But  one  volume,  my  friends,  one  volume  more  — 
We'll  dine  on  roast  beef,  and  print  one  volume  more." 

Scott  printed,  as  a  contribution  to  his  favorite 
club,  the  record  of  the  trial  of  two  Highlanders  for 
murder,  which  brought  forth  some  highly  character 
istic  incidents.  The  victim  was  a  certain  Sergeant 

O 

Davis,  who  had  charge  of  one  of  the  military  par 
ties  or  guards  dispersed  over  the  Highlands  to  keep 
them  in  order  after  the  '45.  Davis  had  gone  from 
his  own  post  at  Braemar  up  Glen  Clunie  to  meet 
the  guard  from  Glenshee.  He  chose  to  send  his 
men  back  and  take  a  day's  shooting  amon^  the  wild 

»'  O 

mountains  at  the  head  of  the  glen,  and  was  seen  no 
more.  How  he  was  disposed  of  could  easily  be 
divined  in  a  general  way,  but  there  were  no  partic 
ulars  to  be  had.  It  happened,  however,  that  there 
was  one  Highlander  who,  for  reasons  best  known  to 
himself — they  were  never  got  at  —  had  come  to 
the  resolution  of  bringing  his  brother  Highlanders, 
who  had  made  away  with  the  sergeant,  to  justice. 
It  was  necessary  for  his  own  safety,  however,  that 
he  should  be  under  the  pressure  of  a  motive  or  im- 


SOME   BOOK-CLUB   MEN.  283 

pulse  sufficient  to  justify  so  heartless  and  unnatural 
a  proceeding,  otherwise  he  would  himself  have  been 
likely  to  follow  the  sergeant's  fate.  Any  reference 
to  his  conscience,  the  love  of  justice,  respect  for  the 
laws  of  the  land,  or  the  like,  would  of  course  have 
been  received  with  well-merited  ridicule  and  scorn. 
He  must  have  some  motive  which  a  sensible  High 
lander  could  admit  as  probable  in  itself,  and  suffi 
cient  for  its  purpose. 

Accordingly,  the  accuser  said  he  had  been  visited 
by  the  sergeant's  ghost,  who  had  told  him  every 
thing,  and  laid  on  him  the  heavy  burden  of  bring- 
in  SL  his  slaughterers  in  the  flesh  to  their  account. 

o  o 

If  that  were  not  done,  the  troubled  spirit  would  not 
cease  to  walk  the  earth,  and  so  long  as  he  walked 
would  the  afflicted  denouncer  continue  to  be  the 
victim  of  his  ghostly  visits.  The  case  was  tried 
at  Edinburgh,  and  though  the  evidence  was  other 
wise  clear  and  complete,  the  Lowland  jury  were 
perplexed  and  put  out  by  the  supernatural  episode. 
A  Highland  story  with  a  ghost  acting  witness  at 
second  hand,  roused  all  their  Saxon  prejudices,  and 
they  cut  the  knot  of  difficulties  by  declining  to  con 
vict.  A  point  was  supposed  to  have  been  made, 
when  the  counsel  for  the  defence  asked  the  o;host- 

O 

seer  what  language  the  ghost,  who  was  English 
when  in  the  flesh,  spoke  to  the  Highlander,  who 
knew  not  that  language  ;  and  the  witness  answered, 
through  his  interpreter,  that  the  spectre  spoke  as 
good  Gaelic  as  ever  was  heard  in  Lochaber.  Sir 
Walter  Scott,  however,  remarks  that  there  was  no 


284  HIS  CLUB. 

incongruity  in  this,  if  we  once  get  over  the  first 
step  of  the  ghost's  existence.  It  is  curious  that 
Scott  does  not  seem  to  have  woven  the  particulars 
of  this  affair  into  any  one  of  his  novels. 

Among  those  who  contributed  to  place  the  stamp 
of  a  higher  character  on  the  labors  of  the  book 
clubs,  one  of  the  most  remarkable  was  Sir  Alex 
ander  Boswell.  A  time  there  was,  unfortunately, 
when  his  name  could  not  easily  be  dissociated  from 
exasperating  political  events,  but  now  that  the  gen 
eration  concerned  in  them  has  nearly  passed  away, 
it  becomes  practicable,  even  from  the  side  of  his 
political  opponents,  to  glance  at  his  literary  abilities 
and  accomplishments  without  recalling  exciting  rec 
ollections.  He  was  a  member  of  the  Roxburghe, 
and  though  he  did  not  live  to  see  the  improvement 
in  the  issues  of  that  institution,  or  the  others  which 
kept  pace  with  it,  he,  alone  and  single-handed,  set 
the  example  of  printing  the  kind  of  books  which  it 
was  afterwards  the  merit  of  the  book  clubs  to  pro 
mulgate.  He  gave  them,  in  fact,  their  tone.  He 
had  at  his  paternal  home  of  Auchinleck  a  remark 
able  collection  of  rare  books  and  manuscripts  ;  one 
of  these  afforded  the  text  from  which  the  romance 
of  Sir  Tristrem  was  printed.  He  reprinted  from 
the  one  remaining  copy  in  his  own  possession  the 
disputation  between  John  Knox  and  Quentin  Ken 
nedy,  a  priest  who  came  forward  against  the  great 
Reformer  as  the  champion  of  the  old  religion. 
From  the  Auchinleck  Press  came  also  reprints  of 
Lodge's  Fig  for  Momus,  Churchyard's  Mirrour  of 


SOME  BOOK-CLUB  MEN.  285 

Man,  the  Book  of  the  Chess,  Sir  James  Dier's 
Remembrancer  of  the  Life  of  Sir  Nicholas  Bacon, 
the  Dialogus  inter  Deum  et  Evam,  and  others. 

The  possession  of  a  private  printing-press  is,  no 
doubt,  a  very  appalling  type  of  bibliomania.  Much 
as  has  been  told  us  of  the  awful  scale  in  which 
drunkards  consume  their  favored  poison,  one  is  not 
accustomed  to  hear  of  their  setting  up  private  stills 
for  their  own  individual  consumption.  There  is  a 
Sardanapalitan  excess  in  this  bibliographical  luxuri- 
ousness  which  refuses  to  partake  with  other  vulgar 
mortals  in  the  common  harvest  of  the  public  press, 
but  must  itself  minister  to  its  own  tastes  and  de 
mands.  The  owner  of  such  an  establishment  is 
subject  to  no  extraneous  caprices  about  breadth  of 
margins,  size  of  type,  quarto  or  folio,  leaded  or  un 
leaded  lines  ;  he  dictates  his  own  terms  ;  he  is  mas 
ter  of  the  situation,  as  the  French  say  ;  and  is  the 
true  autocrat  of  literature.  There  have  been  sev 
eral  renowned  private  presses :  Walpole's,  at  Straw 
berry  Hill ;  Mr.  Johnes's,  at  Hafod  ;  Allan's,  at  the 
Grange  ;  and  the  Lee  Priory  Press.  None  of  these, 
however,  went  so  distinctly  into  the  groove  after 
wards  followed  by  the  book  clubs  as  Sir  Alexander 
Boswell's  Auchinleck  Press.  In  the  Bibliograph 
ical  Decameron  is  a  brief  history,  by  Sir  Alexander 
himself,  of  the  rise  and  progress  of  his  press.  He 
tells  us  how  he  had  resolved  to  print  Knox's  Dis 
putation  :  "  For  this  purpose  I  was  constrained  to 
purchase  two  small  fonts  of  black  letter,  and  to 
have  punches  cut  for  eighteen  or  twenty  double 


286  Bis  CLUB. 

letters  and  contractions.  I  was  thus  enlisted  and 
articled  into  the  service,  and  being  infected  with 
the  type,  fever,  the  fits  have  periodically  returned. 
In  the  year  1815,  having  viewed  a  portable  press 
invented  by  Mr.  John  Ruthven,  an  ingenious  printer 
in  Edinburgh,  I  purchased  one,  and  commenced  com 
positor.  At  this  period,  my  brother  having  it  in 
contemplation  to  present  Bamfield  to  the  Rox- 
burghe  Club,  and  not  aware  of  the  poverty  and 
insignificance  of  my  establishment,  expressed  a 
wish  that  his  tract  should  issue  from  the  Auchin- 
leck  Press.  I  determined  to  gratify  him,  and  the 
portable  press  being  too  small  for  general  purposes, 
I  exchanged  it  for  one  of  Mr.  Ruthven's  full-sized 
ones  ;  and  having  increased  my  stock  to  eight  small 
fonts,  roman  and  italic,  with  the  necessary  appurte 
nances,  I  placed  the  whole  in  a  cottage,  built  orig 
inally  for  another  purpose,  very  pleasantly  situated 
on  the  bank  of  a  rivulet,  and,  although  concealed 
from  view  by  the  surrounding  wood,  not  a  quarter 
of  a  mile  from  my  house."  l 

To  show  the  kind  of  man  who  cooperated  with 
Scott  in  such  frivolities,  let  me  say  a  word  or  two 
more  about  Sir  Alexander.  He  was  the  son,  ob 
serve,  of  Johnson's  Jamie  Boswell,  but  he  was 
about  as  like  his  father  as  an  eagle  might  be  to  a 
peacock.  To  use  a  common  colloquial  phrase,  he 
was  a  man  of  genius,  if  ever  there  was  one.  Had 
he  been  a  poorer  and  socially  humbler  man  than  he 
was  —  had  he  had  his  bread  and  his  position  to 
1  Bibliographical  Decameron,  ii.  454. 


SOME  BOOK-CLUB  MEN.  287 

make  —  he  would  probably  have  achieved  immor 
tality.  Some  of  his  songs  are  as  familiar  to  the 
world  as  those  of  Burns,  though  their  author  is 
forgotten,  —  as,  for  instance,  the  song  of  parental 
farewell,  beginning  — 

"  Good-night,  and  joy  be  wi'  ye  a' ; 
Your  harmless  mirth  has  cheered  my  heart/' 

and  ending  with  this  fine  and  genial  touch  — 

"  The  auld  Avill  speak,  the  young  maun  hear  ; 

Be  canty,  but  be  good  and  leal; 
Your  ain  ills  aye  hae  heart  to  bear, 

Another's  aye  hae  heart  to  feel; 
So,  ere  I  set  I'll  see  you  shine, 

I'll  see  you  triumph  ere  I  fa', 
My  parting  breath  shall  boast  you  mine. 

Good-night,  and  joy  be  wi'  you  a'." 

His  "  Auld  Gudeman,  ye're  a  drucken  carle," 
"  Jenny's  Bawbee,"  and  "  Jenny  dang  the  Weaver," 
are  of  another  kind,  and  perhaps  fuller  of  the  pecul 
iar  spirit  of  the  man.  This  consisted  in  hitting  off 
the  deeper  and  typical  characteristics  of  Scottish  life 
with  an  easy  touch  that  brings  it  all  home  at  once. 
His  lines  do  not  seem  as  if  they  were  composed  by 
an  effort  of  talent,  but  as  if  they  were  the  sponta 
neous  expressions  of  nature. 

Take  the  following  specimen  of  ludicrous  pom 
posity,  which  must  suffer  a  little  by  being  quoted 
from  memory ;  it  describes  a  highland  procession  — 

"  Come  the  Grants  o'  Tullochgorum 
Wi'  their  pipers  on  afore  'em  ; 
Proud  the  mithers  are  that  bore  'em, 
Fee  fuddle,  fau  fum. 


288  HIS  CLUB. 

"  Come  the  Grants  o'  Rothiemurchus, 
Ilka  ane  his  sword  and  dark  has, 
Ilka  ane  as  proud's  a  Turk  is, 
Fee  fuddle,  fau  fum." 

To  comprehend  the  spirit  of  this,  one  must  en 
dow  himself  with  the  feelings  of  a  Lowland  Scot 
before  Waverley  and  Rob  Roy  imparted  a  glow  of 
romantic  interest  to  the  Highlanders.  The  pom 
pous  and  the  ludicrous  were  surely  never  more 
happily  interwoven.  One  would  require  to  go  far 
ther  back  still  to  appreciate  the  spirit  of  "  Skeldon 
Haughs,  or  the  Sow  is  Flitted."  It  is  a  picture  of 
old  Border  feudal  rivalry  and  hatred.  The  Laird 
of  Bargainy  resolved  to  humiliate  his  neighbor  and 
enemy,  the  Laird  of  Kerse,  by  a  forcible  occupation 
of  part  of  his  territory.  For  the  purpose  of  making 
this  aggression  flagrantly  insulting,  it  was  done  by 
tethering  or  staking  a  female  pig  on  the  domain  of 
Kerse.  The  animal  was,  of  course,  attended  by  a 
sufficient  body  of  armed  men  for  her  protection.  It 
was  necessary  for  his  honor  that  the  Laird  of  Kerse 
should  drive  the  animal  and  her  attendants  away, 
and  hence  came  a  bloody  battle  about  the  flitting  of 
the  sow.  In  the  contest,  Kerse's  eldest  son  and 
hope,  Jock,  is  killed,  and  the  point  or  moral  of  the 
narrative  is,  the  contempt  with  which  the  old  laird 
looks  on  that  event,  as  compared  with  the  grave 
affair  of  flitting  the  sow.  A  retainer  who  comes  to 
tell  him  the  result  of  the  battle  stammers  in  his  nar 
rative  on  account  of  his  grief  for  Jock,  and  is  thus 
pulled  up  by  the  laird  — 


SOME  BOOK-CLUB  MEN.  289 

" '  Is  the  sow  flitted  ? '  cries  the  carle, 
'  Gie  me  my  answer,  short  and  plain  — 
Is  the  sow  flitted,  yammerin'  wean  "? ' ' 

To  which  the  answer  is,  — 

"  '  The  sow,  deil  tak  her,  's  ower  the  water, 
And  at  their  back  the  Crawfords  clatter ; 
The  Carrick  couts  are  cowed  and  bitted.'  " 

Hereupon  the  laird's  exultation  breaks  forth,  — 
"  '  My  thumb  for  Jock  — the  sow's  flitted.' " 

Another  man  of  genius  and  learning,  whose  name 
is  a  household  one  among  the  book  clubs,  is  Robert 
Surtees,  the  historian  of  Durham.  You  may  hunt 
for  it  in  vain  among  the  biographical  dictionaries. 
Let  us  hope  that  this  deficiency  will  be  well  sup 
plied  in  the  Biographia  Britannica,  projected  by 
Mr.  Murray.  Surtees  was  not  certainly  among 
those  who  flare  their  qualities  before  the  world — 
he  was  to  a  peculiar  degree  addicted,  as  we  shall 
shortly  see,  to  hiding  his  light  under  a  bushel ;  and 
so  any  little  notice  of  him  in  actual  flesh  and  blood, 
such  as  this  left  by  his  friend,  the  Rev.  James  Tate, 
master  of  Richmond  School,  interests  one  :  — 

"  One  evening  I  was  sitting  alone  —  it  was  about 
nine  o'clock  in  the  middle  of  summer  —  there  came 
a  gentle  tap  at  the  door.  I  opened  the  door  myself, 
and  a  gentleman  said  with  great  modesty,  '  Mr. 
Tate,  I  am  Mr.  Surtees  of  Mainsforth.  James 
Raine  begged  I  would  call  upon  you.'  '  The  mas 
ter  of  Richmond  School  is  delighted  to  see  you,' 
said  I ;  4  pray  walk  in.'  '  No,  thank  you,  sir ;  I 

19 


290  HIS  CLUB. 

have  ordered  a  bit  of  supper  ;  perhaps  you  will 
walk  up  with  me  ? '  4  To  be  sure  I  will ; '  and  away 
we  went.  As  we  went  along,  I  quoted  a  line  from 
the  Odyssey.  What  was  my  astonishment  to  hear 
from  Mr.  Surtees,  not  the  next  only,  but  line  after 
line  of  the  passage  I  had  touched  upon.  Said  I  to 
myself,  4  Good  Master  Tate,  take  heed ;  it  is  not 
often  you  catch  such  a  fellow  as  this  at  Richmond/ 
I  never  spent  such  an  evening  in  my  life."  What 
a  pity,  then,  that  he  did  not  give  us  more  of  the 
evening,  which  seems  to  have  left  joyful  memories 
to  both ;  for  Surtees  himself  thus  commemorated  it 
in  Macaronics,  in  which  he  was  an  adept  — 

"  Doctus  Tatius  hie  residet, 
Ad  Coronain  prandet  ridet, 
Spargit  sales  cum  cachinno, 
Lepido  ore  et  coneinno, 
Ubique  cams  inter  bonos 
Rubei  mentis  praesens  honos."1 

1  [In  macaronics  ?  The  author's  memory  must  have  failed 
him  for  a  moment,  or  all  other  writers  are  wrong  in  supposing 
that  a  mixture  of  two  languages,  both  being  used  as  one,  each 
being  often  subjected  to  the  grammatical  inflections  of  the  other, 
is  essential  to  the  macaronic  style.  Thus,  the  lines  beginning  — 

"  Trumpeter  unus  erat 
Qui  scarletum  coatum  habebat," 

are  macaronic.  And  perhaps  this  specimen  of  the  style  is  good 
enough  and  not  too  well  known  to  be  quoted  entire  in  illustra 
tion  :  — 

"FELIS  ET  MURES. 

"  Felis  sedit  by  a  hole; 
Intentus  he,  cum  omni  soul, 
Prendere  rats. 


SOME  BOOK-CLUB  MEN.  291 

In  the  same  majestic  folio  in  which  this  anecdote 
may  be  found  —  the  Memoir  prefixed  to  the  His- 


Mice  cucurrerunt  over  the  floor, 
In  numero  duo,  tres,  or  more  — 
Obliti  cats. 

"  Felis  saw  them,  oculis, 
I'll  have  them,  inquit  he,  I  guess  — 

Dum  ludunt. 

Tune  ille  crept  toward  the  group, 
Habeam,  dixit,  good  rat  soup  — 

Pingues  sunt. 

"  Mice  continued  all  ludere, 
Intenti  they  in  ludum  vere  — 

Gnudenter. 

Tune  rushed  the  felis  into  them, 
Et  tore  them  omnes  limb  from  limb 

Violenter. 


"  Mures  omnes  nunc  be  shy, 
Et  aurem  prsebe  mihi  — 

Benigne. 

Sic  ho!  facis,  "  verbum  sat," 
Avoid  a  devilish  big  tomcat 

Studiose!  " 

The  lines  quoted  in  the  text  from  Surtees  are  mere  dog  Latin 
in  the  stanza  and  style  of  Drunken  Barnaby.  The  reader  who 
is  at  all  curious  about  macaronic  poetry  cannot  do  better  than  to 
consult  M.  Octave  Delepierre's  Macaronea,  ou  Melanges  de  Litte- 
ralure  Macaronique  des  Differents  Peuples  de  I' Europe.  8vo.  Paris, 
1852.  He  will  find  in  it  some  learning,  but  not  much  entertain 
ment  ;  which  is  the  fault  of  the  subject  rather  than  of  the  au 
thor. 

From  macaronic  verse  to  verse  written  for  the  sake  of  rhyme, 
is  such  an  easy  transition  that  I  may  be  excused  for  adding  here 
the  following  lines,  which  I  owe  to  a  friend.  And  although  I 
must  say  that  I  think  he  might  have  been  better  employed  than 


292  Bis  CLUB. 

tory  of  Durham  —  we  are  likewise  told  how,  when 
at  college,  he  was  waiting  on  a  Don  on  business  ; 
and,  feeling  coldish,  stirred  the  fire.  "  Pray,  Mr. 
Surtees,"  said  the  great  man,  "  do  you  think  that 
any  other  undergraduate  in  the  college  would  have 
taken  that  liberty  ?  "  "  Yes,  Mr.  Dean,"  was  the 
reply  —  "  any  one  as  cool  as  I  am  !  "  This  would 
have  been  not  unworthy  of  Brummell.  The  next 
is  not  in  BrummeH's  line.  Arguing  with  a  neigh 
bor  about  his  not  going  to  church,  the  man  said, 
"  Why,  sir,  the  parson  and  I  have  quarrelled  about 
the  tithes."  "  You  fool,"  was  the  reply,  "  is  that 
any  reason  why  you  should  go  to  hell  ?  "  Yet  an 
other.  A  poor  man,  with  a  numerous  family,  lost 
his  only  cow.  Surtees  was  collecting  a  subscrip 
tion  to  replace  the  loss,  and  called  on  the  Bishop 
of  Lichfield,  who  was  Dean  of  Durham,  and  owner 
of  the  great  tithes  in  the  parish,  to  ascertain  what 

in  writing  such  stuff,  yet  the  indulgent  reader  will  perhaps  par 
don  him  for  showing  that  the  discussion  in  recent  numbers  of  the 
London  "  Athenaeum  "  upon  the  possibility  of  a  rhyme  to  step, 
and  the  decision  that  none  exists,  are  not  well  founded  :  — 

HORSE-BREAKER   AND    GREY-MARE. 

"  Aurelia,  prettiest  of  horse-breakers, 
Caught  Nobleigh,  lord  of  many  acres. 
But  this  time,  so  it  came  to  pass, 
Instead  of  horse,  she  tamed  an  ass. 
None  of  his  friends  will  e'er  dispute  it; 
For  he,  while  struggling  to  refute  it, 
Was  blindly  led  on,  step  by  step, 
To  marry  the  fair  demi-rep. 
And  seeking  but  a  female  Rarey, 
He  got  a  wife  somewhat  grey-mare-y."  —  W.] 


SOME  BOOK-CLUB  MEN.  293 

he  would  give.  "  Give  !  "  said  the  Bishop,  "  why, 
a  cow,  to  be  sure.  Go,  Mr.  Surtees,  to  my  stew 
ard,  and  tell  him  to  give  you  as  much  money  as 
will  buy  the  best  cow  you  can  find."  Surtees, 
astonished  at  this  unexpected  generosity,  said  — 
"  My  Lord,  I  hope  you  will  ride  to  heaven  upon 
the  back  of  that  cow."  A  while  afterwards  he  was 
saluted  in  the  college  by  the  late  Lord  Barrington, 
with  —  "Surtees,  what  is  the  absurd  speech  that 
I  hear  you  have  been  making  to  the  dean  ?  "  "I 
see  nothing  absurd  in  it,"  was  the  reply ;  "  when 
the  dean  rides  to  heaven  on  the  back  of  that  cow, 
many  of  your  prebendaries  will  be  glad  to  lay  hold 
of  her  tail." 

I  have  noted  these  innocent  trifles  concerning 
one  who  is  chiefly  known  as  a  deep  and  dry  investi 
gator,  for  the  purpose  of  propitiating  the  reader  in 
his  favor,  since  the  sacred  cause  of  truth  renders 
it  necessary  to  refer  to  another  affair  in  which  his 
conduct,  however  trifling  it  might  be,  was  not  inno 
cent.  He  was  addicted  to  literary  practical  jokes 
of  an  audacious  kind,  and  carried  his  presumption 
so  far  as  to  impose  on  Sir  Walter  Scott  a  spurious 
ballad  which  has  a  place  in  the  Border  Minstrelsy. 
Nor  is  it  by  any  means  a  servile  imitation,  which 
might  pass  unnoticed  in  a  crowd  of  genuine  and 
better  ballads  ;  but  it  is  one  of  the  most  spirited, 
and  one  of  the  most  thoroughly  endowed  with  in 
dividual  character  in  the  whole  collection.  This 
guilty  composition  is  known  as  "  The  Death  o£ 
Featherstonhaugh,"  and  begins  thus  :  — 


294  HIS  CLUB. 

"  Hoot  awa',  lads,  hoot  awa' ; 

Ha'  ye  heard  how  the  Ridleys,  and  Thirlwalls,  and  a', 
Ha'  set  upon  Albany  Featherstonhaugh, 
And  taken  his  life  at  the  Dead  Man's  Haugh  ? 

There  was  Williemoteswick 

And  Hardriding  Dick, 
And  Hughie  of  Hawdon,  and  Will  of  the  Wa', 

I  canna  tell  a',  I  canna  tell  a', 
And  many  a  mair  that  the  deil  may  knaw. 

"The  auld  man  went  down,  but  Nicol  his  son 
Ran  away  afore  the  fight  was  begun  ; 

And  he  run,  and  he  run, 

And  afore  they  were  done 
There  was  many  a  Featherston  gat  sic  a  stun, 
As  never  was  seen  since  the  world  begun. 

I  canna  tell  a',  I  canna  tell  a', 

Some  got  a  skelp,  and  some  got  a  claw, 

But  they  gar't  the  Featherstons  haud  their  jaw. 
Some  got  a  hurt,  and  some  got  nane, 
Some  had  harness,  and  some  got  staen." 

This  imposture,  professing  to  be  taken  down 
from  the  recitation  of  a  woman  eighty  years  old, 
was  accompanied  with  some  explanatory  notes, 
characteristic  of  the  dry  antiquary,  thus  :  — 
"  Hardriding  Dick  is  not  an  epithet  referring  to 
horsemanship,  but  means  Richard  Ridley  of  Hard- 
riding,  the  seat  of  another  family  of  that  name, 
which,  in  the  time  of  Charles  I.,  was  sold  on  ac 
count  of  expenses  incurred  by  the  loyalty  of  the 
proprietor,  the  immediate  ancestor  of  Sir  Matthew 
Ridley.  Will  o'  the  Wa'  seems  to  be  William 
Ridley  of  Walltown,  so  called  from  its  situation 
on  the  great  Roman  wall.  Thirl  wall  Castle, 
whence  the  clan  of  Thirlwalls  derived  their  name, 


SOME  BOOK-CLUB  MEN.  295 

is  situated  on  the  small  river  of  Tippell,  near  the 
western  boundary  of  Northumberland.  It  is  near 
the  wall,  and  takes  its  name  from  the  rampart 
having  been  thirled  —  that  is,  pierced  or  breached 
—  in  its  vicinity." 

In  the  Life  of  Surtees,  the  evidence  of  the  crime 
is  thus  dryly  set  forth,  in  following  up  a  statement 
of  the  transmission  of  the  manuscript,  and  of  its 
publication  :  —  "  Yet  all  this  was  a  mere  figment 
of  Surtees's  imagination,  originating  probably  in 
some  whim  of  ascertaining  how  far  he  could  iden 
tify  himself  with  the  stirring  times,  scenes,  and 
poetical  compositions  which  his  fancy  delighted  to 
dwell  on.  This  is  proved  by  more  than  one  copy 
among  his  papers  of  this  ballad,  corrected  and  in 
terlined,  in  order  to  mould  it  to  the  language,  the 
manners,  and  the  feelings  of  the  period  and  of  the 
district  to  which  it  refers.  Mr.  Surtees  no  doubt 
had  wished  to  have  the  success  of  his  attempt  tested 
by  the  unbiassed  opinion  of  the  very  first  authority 
on  the  subject ;  and  the  result  must  have  been  grat 
ifying  to  him." 

In  Scott's  acknowledgment  of  the  contribution, 
printed  also  in  the  Life  of  Surtees,  there  are  some 
words  that  must  have  brought  misgivings  and  fear 
of  detection  to  the  heart  of  the  culprit,  since  Scott, 
without  apparently  allowing  doubts  to  enter  his 
mind,  yet  marked  some  peculiarities  in  the  piece, 
in  which  it  differed  from  others.  "  Your  notes  upon 
the  parties  concerned  give  it  all  the  interest  of 
authority,  and  it  must  rank,  I  suppose,  among 


296  HIS  CLUB. 

those  half-serious,  half-ludicrous  songs,  in  which 
the  poets  of  the  Border  delighted  to  describe  what 
they  considered  as  the  sport  of  swords.  It  is  per 
haps  remarkable,  though  it  may  be  difficult  to  guess 
a  reason,  that  these  Cumbrian  ditties  are  of  a  differ 
ent  stanza  and  character,  and  obviously  sung  to  a 
different  kind  of  music,  from  those  on  the  northern 
Border.  The  gentleman  who  collected  the  words 
may  perhaps  be  able  to  describe  the  tune." 

There  is  perhaps  no  system  of  ethics  which  lays 
down  with  perfect  precision  the  moral  code  on  lit 
erary  forgeries,  or  enables  us  to  judge  of  the  exact 
enormity  of  such  offences.  The  world  looks  lenient 
ly  on  them,  and  sometimes  sympathizes  with  them 
as  good  jokes.  Allan  Cunningham  did  not  lose  his 
designation  of  "  honest  Allan  "  by  the  tremendous 
"  rises  "  which  he  took  out  of  Cromek  about  those 
remains  of  Nithsdale  and  Galloway  song  —  a  case 
in  point  so  far  as  principle  goes,  but  differing  some 
what  in  the  intellectual  rank  of  the  victim  to  the 
hoax.  The  temptation  to  commit  such  offences  is 
often  extremely  strong,  and  the  injury  seems  slight, 
while  the  offender  probably  consoles  himself  with 
the  reflection  that  he  can  immediately  counteract 
it  by  confession.  Vanity,  indeed,  often  joins  con 
scientiousness  in  hastening  on  a  revelation.  Surtees, 
however,  remained  in  obdurate  silence,  and  I  am 
not  aware  that  any  edition  of  the  Minstrelsy  draws 
attention  to  his  handiwork.  Lockhart  seems  not 
only  to  have  been  ignorant  of  it,  but  to  have  been 
totally  unconscious  of  the  risk  of  such  a  thing,  since 


SOME  BOOK-CLUB  MEN.  297 

he  always  speaks  of  its  author  as  a  respectable  local 
antiquary,  useful  to  Scott  as  a  harmless  drudge. 
Perhaps  Surtees  was  afraid  of  what  he  had  done, 
like  that  teller  in  the  House  of  Commons  who  is 
said  by  tradition  to  have  attempted  to  make  a  bad 
joke  in  the  division  on  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act  by 
counting  a  fat  man  as  ten,  and,  seeing  that  the 
trick  passed  unnoticed,  and  also  passed  the  measure, 
became  afraid  to  confess  it. 

The  literary  history  of  "  The  Death  of  Feather- 
stonhaugh  "  naturally  excited  uneasiness  about  the 
touching  ballad  of  "  Barthram's  Dirge,"  also  con 
tributed  to  the  Minstrelsy  as  the  fruit  of  the  indus 
trious  investigations  of  Surtees.  Most  readers  will 
remember  this  — 

"  They  shot  him  dead  at  the  Nine-Stone  Kig, 

Beside  the  headless  cross, 
And  they  left  him  lying  in  his  blood, 
Upon  the  moor  and  moss." 

After  this  stanza,  often  admired  for  its  clearness 
as  a  picture,  there  is  a  judicious  break,  and  then 
come  stanzas  originally  deficient  in  certain  words, 
which,  as  hypothetically  supplied  by  Surtees,  were 
good-naturedly  allowed  to  remain  within  brackets, 
as  ingenious  suggestions  :  — 

"  They  made  a  bier  of  the  broken  bough, 

The  sauch  and  the  aspine  gray, 
And  they  bore  him  to  the  Lady  Chapel, 
And  waked  him  there  all  day. 

"A  lady  came  to  that  lonely  bower, 

And  threw  her  robes  aside  ; 
She  tore  her  ling  [long]  yellow  hair, 
And  knelt  at  Barthram's  side. 


298  BIS  CLUB. 

"  She  bathed  him  in  the  Lady  Well, 

His  wounds  sac  deep  and  sair, 
And  she  plaited  a  garland  for  his  breast, 
And  a  garland  for  his  hair." 

A  glance  at  the  reprint  of  the  Life  of  Surtees  for 
the  book  club  called  after  his  name,  confirms  the 
suspicions  raised  by  the  exposure  of  the  other  ballad 
—  this  also  is  an  imposition.1 

Altogether,  such  affairs  create  an  unpleasant 
uncertainty  about  the  paternity  of  that  delightful 
department  of  literature,  our  ballad  poetry.  Where 
next  are  we  to  be  disenchanted  ?  Of  the  way  in 
which  ancient  ballads  have  come  into  existence, 
there  is  one  sad  example  within  my  own  knowl 
edge.  Some  mad  young  wags,  wishing  to  test  the 
critical  powers  of  an  experienced  collector,  sent  him 
a  new-made  ballad,  which  they  had  been  enabled 
to  secure  only  in  a  fragmentary  form.  To  the  sur 
prise  of  its  fabricator,  it  was  duly  printed ;  but  what 
naturally  raised  his  surprise  to  astonishment,  and 
revealed  to  him  a  secret,  was,  that  it  was  no  longer 
a  fragment,  but  a  complete  ballad,  —  the  collector, 
in  the  course  of  his  industrious  inquiries  among  the 
peasantry,  having  been  so  fortunate  as  to  recover 
the  missing  fragments  !  It  was  a  case  where  neither 

1The  editor  of  the  Life  prints  the  following  note  by  Mr.  Raine, 
the  coadjutor  of  Surtees  in  his  investigations  into  the  history  of 
the  North  of  England:  —  "I  one  evening  in  looking  through 
Scott's  Minstrelsy  wrote  opposite  to  this  dirge  aut  Roberttu  out 
Diabolus.  Surtees  called  shortly  after,  and,  pouncing  upon  the 
remark,  justified  me  by  his  conversation  on  the  subject,  in  add 
ing  to  my  note  ita,  teste  seipso"  p.  87. 


SOME  BOOK-CLUB  MEN.  999 

could  say  anything  to  the  other,  though  Cato  might 
wonder,  quod  non  rideret  haruspex,  haruspicem  cum 
vidisset.  This  ballad  has  been  printed  in  more 
than  one  collection,  and  admired  as  an  instance  of 
the  inimitable  simplicity  of  the  genuine  old  ver 
sions  ! 

It  may  perhaps  do  something  to  mitigate  Sur- 
tees's  offence  in  the  eye  of  the  world,  that  it  was 
he  who  first  suggested  to  Scott  the  idea  of  improv 
ing  the  Jacobite  insurrections,  and,  in  fact,  writing 
Waverley.  In  the  very  same  letter,  quoted  above, 
where  Scott  acknowledges  the  treacherous  gift,  he 
also  acknowledges  the  hints  he  has  received  ;  and, 
mentioning  the  Highland  stories  he  had  imbibed 
from  old  Stewart  of  Invernahyle,  says,  "  I  believe 
there  never  was  a  man  who  united  the  ardor  of  a 
soldier  and  tale-teller  —  or  man  of  talk,  as  they  call 
it  in  Gaelic  —  in  such  an  excellent  degree ;  and  as 
he  was  as  fond  of  telling  as  I  was  of  hearing,  I  be 
came  a  violent  Jacobite  at  the  age  of  ten  years  old ; 
and  even  since  reason  and  reading  came  to  my 
assistance,  I  have  never  got  rid  of  the  impression 
which  the  gallantry  of  Prince  Charles  made  on  my 
imagination.  Certainly  I  will  not  renounce  the  idea 
of  doing  something  to  preserve  these  stories,  and 
the  memory  of  times  and  manners  which,  though 
existing  as  it  were  yesterday,  have  so  strangely 
vanished  from  our  eyes." 

So  much  for  certain  men  of  mark  whose  pursuits 
or  hobbies  induced  them  to  cluster  round  the  cradle 
of  this  new  literary  organization.  When  it  was  full 


300  if  is  CLUB. 

grown  it  gathered  about  it  a  large  body  of  system 
atic  workers,  who  had  their  own  special  depart 
ments  in  the  great  republic  of  letters.  To  offer  a 
just  and  [discriminating  account  of  these  men's  ser 
vices  would  draw  me  through  an  extensive  tract  of 
literary  biography. 

There  is  a  shallow  prejudice  very  acceptable  to 
all  blockheads,  that  men  who  are  both  learned  and 
laborious  must  necessarily  be  stupid.  It  is  best  to 
meet  the  approach  of  such  a  prejudice  at  once,  by 
saying  that  the  editors  of  club  books  are  not  mere 
dreary  drudges,  seeing  the  works  of  others  accu 
rately  through  the  press,  and  attending  only  to 
dates  and  headings.  Around  and  throughout  the 

O  O 

large  library  of  volumes  issued  by  these  institutions, 
there  run  prolific  veins  of  fresh  literature  pregnant 
with  learning  and  ability.  The  style  of  work  thus 
set  a-going  has  indeed  just  the  other  day  been  incor 
porated  into  a  sort  of  department  of  state  literature, 
since  the  great  collection  called  "  The  Chronicles 
and  Memorials  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  during 
the  Middle  Ages,"  of  which  the  Master  of  the  Rolls 
accepts  the  responsibility,  is  carried  out  in  the  very 
spirit  of  the  book  clubs,  in  which  indeed  most  of  the 
editors  of  the  Chronicles  have  been  trained. 

Without  prejudice  to  others,  let  me  just  name  a 
few  of  those  to  whom  the  world  is  under  obliga 
tion  for  services  in  this  field  of  learned  labor.  For 
England,  there  are  James  Orchard  Halliwell,  Sir 
Frederic  Madden,  Bcriali  Botfield,  Sir  Henry  Ellis, 
Alexander  Dyce,  Thomas  Stapleton,  William  J. 


SOME  BOOK-CLUB  MEN.  301 

Thorns,  Crofton  Croker,  Albert  Way,  Joseph  Hun 
ter,  John  Bruce,  Thomas  Wright,  John  Gough 
Nichols,  Payne  Collier,  Joseph  Stevenson,  and 
George  Watson  Taylor,  who  edited  that  curious 
and  melancholy  book  of  poems,  composed  by  the 
Duke  of  Orleans  while  he  was  a  prisoner  in  Eng 
land  after  the  battle  of  Agincourt  —  poems  com 
posed,  singularly  enough,  in  the  English  language, 
and  at  a  period  extremely  deficient  in  native  ver 
nacular  literature. 

In  Scotland,  it  was  in  the  earlier  issues  of  the 
Bannatyne  that  Thomas  Thomson,  too  indolent 
or  fastidious  to  commit  himself  to  the  writing  of  a 
book,  left  the  most  accessible  vestiges  of  that  power 
of  practically  grasping  historical  facts  and  condi 
tions,  which  Scott  admired  so  greatly,  and  acknowl 
edged  so  much  benefit  from.  He  was  followed  by 
Professor  Innes,  who  found  and  taught  the  secret 
of  extracting  from  ecclesiastical  chartularies,  and 
other  early  records,  the  light  they  throw  upon  the 
social  condition  of  their  times,  and  thus  collected 
matter  for  the  two  pleasant  volumes  which  have 
become  so  popular.  The  Bannatyne  Club  lately 
finding  no  more  to  do,  wound  up  with  a  graceful 
compliment  to  David  Laing,  the  man  to  whom, 
after  Scott,  it  has  been  most  indebted.  And,  lastly, 
it  is  in  the  Scotch  book  clubs  that  Joseph  Robert 
son  has  had  the  opportunity  of  exercising  those 
subtle  powers  of  investigation  and  critical  acumen, 
peculiarly  his  own,  which  have  had  a  perceptible 
and  substantial  effect  in  raising  archaeology  out  of 


302  BIS  CLUB. 

that  quackish  repute  which  it  had  long  to  endure 
under  the  name  of  antiquarianism.  For  Ireland,  of 
which  I  have  something  further  to  say  at  length, 
let  it  suffice  in  the  mean  time  to  name  Dean  But 
ler,  Dr.  Reeves,  Mr.  O'Donovan,  Mr.  Eugene 
Curry,  and  Dr.  Henthorn  Todd. 

There  is  another  and  distinct  class  of  services 
which  have  been  performed  through  the  medium 
of  the  club  books.  The  Roxburghe  having  been 
founded  on  the  principle  that  each  member  should 
print  a  volume,  to  be  distributed  among  his  col 
leagues,  an  example  was  thus  set  to  men  of  easy  for 
tune  and  scholarly  tastes,  which  has  been  followed 
with  a  large  liberality,  of  which  the  public  have  prob 
ably  but  a  faint  idea.  Not  only  in  those  clubs  founded 
on  the  reciprocity  system  of  each  member  distribut 
ing  and  receiving,  but  in  those  to  be  presently  no 
ticed,  where  the  ordinary  members  pay  an  annual 
sum  to  be  expended  in  the  printing  of  their  books, 
have  individual  gentlemen  came  forward  and  borne 
the  expense  of  printing  and  distributing  costly  vol 
umes.1  In  some  instances  valuable  works  have  thus 

1  [The  author's  remark,  that  the  British  public  "  have  prob 
ably  but  a  faint  idea  "  of  the  liberality  with  which  individuals 
among  his  countrymen  have  printed  and  distributed  costly  vol 
umes,  makes  it  proper  to  observe  that  there  is  probably  here, 
and  certainly  abroad,  a  similar  ignorance  of  a  similar  generous 
and  public-spirited  practice  among  men  of  some  means  (though 
not  always  of  wealth)  and  of  literary  tastes  in  this  country. 
The  books  thus  printed  as  gifts  generally  refer  to  the  early  his 
tory  of  our  nation,  or  to  the  antiquities  of  the  land  in  which  it 
has  fallen  to  our  lot  to  supplant  barbarism  by  civilization.  Of 
course  very  small  editions  are  printed ;  and  these  are  given  ex- 


SOME  BOOK-CLUB  MEN.  3Q3 

been  presented  to  the  members  at  the  cost  of  those 
who  have  also  undergone  the  literary  labor  of  edit 
ing  them. 

There  is  something  extremely  refined  and  gentle 
manlike  in  this  form  of  liberality.  The  recipient 
of  the  bounty  becomes  the  possessor  of  a  handsome 
costly  book  without  being  subjected  in  any  way  to 
the  obligation  of  receiving  a  direct  gift  at  the  hands 
of  the  munificent  donor  ;  for  the  recipient  is  a  sort 
of  corporation  —  a  thing  which  the  lawyers  say  has 
no  personal  responsibility  and  no  conscience,  and 
which  all  the  world  knows  to  have  no  gratitude. 

clusively  to  students,  public  institutions,  and  collectors.  For 
collecting  books  upon  the  history  of  our  nation,  of  our  people 
during  their  colonial  condition,  and  of  the  American  races  whom 
we  have  displaced,  has  so  long  been  a  special  literary  object, 
and  has  been  so  eagerly  pursued,  that  the  demand  has  created 
a  special  department  of  the  book-trade,  and  scarce  books  upon 
America,  the  English  colonies  in  America,  the  United  States,  or 
the  several  States,  bring  prices  which  seem  absurd  when  com 
pared  with  their  intrinsic  value.  So  directly  at  variance  with 
the  truth  is  Sir  Archibald  Alison's  assertion  that  we  are  "  wholly 
regardless  of  historical  records  or  monuments,"  and  that  future 
historians  will  therefore  be  obliged  "  to  write  the  history  of  the 
present  generation  from  the  archives  of  other  lands  ;  "  for  which 
thought,  by  the  way,  he  is  indebted  to  one  of  the  few  errors  of 
the  candid  and  philosophical  De  Tocqueville.  But  these  histori 
cal  reprints  do  not  include  all  the  privately  printed  books,  among 
which  are  even  occasional  reproductions  of  some  very  rare  old 
English  book,  and  monographs  upon  important  questions  in  liter 
ature.  And  this  in  a  country  where,  according  to  the  same  grave 
historian,  "  literature  receives  butlittle  encouragement."  For  our 
own  sakes  it  would  not  be  worth  while  to  notice  these  matters. 
We  can  afford  to  pass  them  by.  But  it  is  curious  and  instruc 
tive  to  observe  with  how  much  ignorance  people  can  enable 
themselves  to  write  about  us.  —  W.] 


PART  IV.  — BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

($tntrolitu0. 

EARLY  a  quarter  of  a  century  after 
the  birth  of  the  first  book  club,  a 
new  era  was  ushered  in  by  its  broth 
er,  the  Camden,  established  for  the 
!  printing  of  books  and  documents  con 
nected  with  the  early  civil,  ecclesiastical,  and  liter 
ary  history  of  the  British  Empire.  It  discarded 
the  rule  which  threw  on  each  member  the  duty  of 
printing  and  distributing  a  book,  and  tried  the  more 
equitable  adjustment  of  an  annual  subscription  to 
create  a  fund  for  defraying  the  expense  of  printing 
volumes  to  be  distributed  among  the  members. 
These,  at  first  limited  to  1000,  expanded  to  1200. 
Clubs  with  various  objects  now  thickly  followed. 
Any  attempt  to  classify  them  as  a  whole,  is  apt  to 
resemble  Whately's  illustration  of  illogical  division 
—  "  e.  g.,  if  you  were  to  divide  '  book '  into  '  poetical, 
historical,  folio,  quarto,  French,  Latin,'  "  &c.  One 
of  the  systems  of  arrangement  is  topographical,  as 
the  Chetham,  "  for  the  purpose  of  publishing  bio 
graphical  and  historical  books  connected  with  the 


GENERALITIES.  305 

counties  palatine  of  Lancaster  and  Chester."  1  The 
Surtees,  again,  named  after  our  friend  the  ballad- 
monger,  affects  "  those  parts  of  England  and  Scot 
land  included  in  the  east  between  the  Humber  and 
the  Firth  of  Forth,  and  in  the  west  between  the 
Mersey  and  the  Clyde  —  a  region  which  constituted 
the  ancient  kingdom  of  Northumberland."  The 
Maitland,  with  its  head-quarters  in  Glasgow,  gives 
a  preference  to  the  west  of  Scotland,  but  has  not 
been  exclusive.  The  Spalding  Club,  established  in 
Aberdeen,  the  granite  capital  of  the  far  north,  is  the 
luminary  of  its  own  district,  and  has  produced  fully 
as  much  valuable  historical  matter  as  any  other  club 
in  Britain.  Then  there  is  the  Irish  Archaeological 

—  perhaps  the  most  learned  of  all  —  with  its  casual 
assistants,  the  Ossianic,  the  Celtic,  and  the  lona. 
The  .ZElfric  may  be  counted  their  ethnical  rival,  as 
dealing  with   the  productions  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
enemies  of  the  Celt.     The  Camden  professes,  as  we 
have  seen,  to  be  general   to   the   British  Empire. 
The  name  of  the  club  called  "  The  Oriental  Trans 
lation  Fund  "  tells  its  own  story. 

There  are  others,  too,  with  no  topographical  con 
nection,  which  express  pretty  well  their  purpose  in 
their  names  —  as  the  Shakespeare,  for  the  old  drama 

—  the  Percy,  for  old   ballads  and   lyrical   pieces. 
The  Hakluyt  has  a  delightful  field  —  old  voyages 

1  Among  other  volumes  of  interest,  the  Chetham  has  issued  a 
very  valuable  and  amusing  collection  of  documents  about  the 
siege  of  Preston,  and  other  incidents  of  the  insurrection  of  1715 
in  Lancashire. 

20 


306  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

and  travels.  The  Rae  Society  sticks  to  zoology 
and  botany ;  and  the  Wernerian,  the  Cavendish, 
and  the  Sydenham,  take  the  other  departments  in 
science,  which  the  names  given  to  them  readily 
indicate. 

In  divinity  and  ecclesiastical  history  we  have  the 
Parker  Society,  named  after  the  archbishop.  Its 
tendencies  are  "low,"  or,  at  all  events,  "broad;" 
and  as  it  counted  some  seven  thousand  members,  it 
could  not  be  allowed  the  run  of  the  public  mind 
without  an  antidote  being  accessible.  Hence,  "  The 
Library  of  Anglo-Catholic  Theology,"  the  tendency 
of  which  was  not  only  shown  in  its  name,  but  in  its 
possessing  among  its  earliest  adherents  the  Rev.  E. 
B.  Pusey  and  the  Rev.  John  Keble.  The  same 
party  strengthened  themselves  by  a  series  of  vol 
umes  called  the  "  Library  of  the  Fathers  of  the 
Holy  Catholic  Church  anterior  to  the  Division  of 
the  East  and  West,  translated  by  Members  of  the 
English  Church."  In  Scotland,  the  two  branches 
which  deny  the  supremacy  of  Rome  (it  would  give 
offence  to  call  them  both  Protestant)  are  well  rep 
resented  by  the  Spottiswoode,  already  referred  to 
as  the  organ  of  Episcopacy ;  and  the  more  prolific 
"VVodrow,  which,  named  after  the  zealous  historian 
of  the  Troubles,  was  devoted  to  the  history  of 
Presbyterianism,  and  the  works  of  the  Presbyterian 
fathers. 

Thus  are  the  book  clubs  eminently  the  republic 
of  letters,  in  which  no  party  or  class  has  an  absolute 
predominance,  but  each  enjoys  a  fair  hearing.  And 


GENERALITIES.  307 

whereas  if  we  saw  people  for  other  purposes  than 
literature  combining  together  according  to  ecclesias 
tical  divisions,  as  High  Church  or  Low,  Episcopa 
lian  or  Presbyterian,  we  should  probably  find  that 
each  excluded  from  its  circle  all  that  do  not  spirit 
ually  belong  to  it,  we  are  assured  it  is  quite  other 
wise  in  the  book  clubs  —  that  High  Churchmen  or 
Romanists  have  not  been  excluded  from  the  Parker, 
or  evangelical  divines  prohibited  from  investing  in 
the  Library  of  Anglo-Catholic  Theology.  Nay,  the 
most  zealous  would  incline  to  encourage  the  com 
munication  of  their  own  peculiar  literary  treasures 
to  their  avowed  theological  opponents,  as  being 
likely  to  soften  their  hearts,  and  turn  them  towards 
the  truth.  Some  adherents  of  these  theological 
clubs  there  also  are  of  slightly  latitudinarian  pro 
pensities,  to  whom  the  aspirations  of  honest  religious 
zeal,  and  the  records  of  endurance  and  martyrdom 
for  conscience'  sake,  can  never  be  void  of  interest, 
or  fail  in  summoning  up  feelings  of  respectful  sym 
pathy,  whatever  be  the  denominational  banner  un 
der  which  they  have  been  exhibited.  Some  of  these 
clubs  now  rest  from  their  labors,  the  literary  strata 
in  which  they  were  employed  having  been  in  fact 
worked  out.  Whether  dead  or  living,  however, 
their  books  are  now  a  considerable  and  varied  in 
tellectual  garden,  in  which  the  literary  busy  bee 
may  gather  honey  all  the  day  and  many  a  day. 

It  will  be  readily  supposed  from  the  different  and 
utterly  separate  grooves  in  which  they  run,  and  is 
very  well  known  to  the  prowler  among  club  books, 


308  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

that  although  these  volumes  profess  to  be  printed 
from  old  manuscripts,  or  to  be  mere  reprints  of  rare 
books,  they  take  a  considerable  portion  of  their  tone 
and  tendency  from  the  editor.  In  fact,  the  editor 
of  a  club  book  is,  in  the  general  case,  a  sort  of 
literary  sportsman,  who  professes  to  follow  entirely 
his  own  humor  or  caprice,  or,  say,  his  own  taste  and 
enjoyment,  in  the  matter  which  he  selects,  and  the 
manner  in  which  he  lays  it  before  his  friends. 
Hence,  many  of  these  volumes,  heavy  and  unim- 
pressible  as  they  look,  yet  are  stamped  strongly  with 
the  marks  of  the  individuality,  or  of  the  peculiar 
intellectual  cast,  of  living  men.  Take  down,  for 
instance,  the  volume  of  the  Camdeu  called  "  De 
Antiquis  Legibus  Liber,  otherwise,  Cronica  Ma- 
jorum  et  Vicecomitum  Londoniarum,"  printed  from 
"  a  small  folio,  nine  inches  and  a  half  in  length  and 
seven  inches  in  breadth,  the  binding  of  white  leather 
covering  wooden  backs,  and  containing  159  leaves 
of  parchment,  paged  continuously  with  Arabic  cy 
phers."  It  is  partly  a  record  of  the  old  muni 
cipal  laws  of  the  city  of  London,  partly  a  chronicle 
of  events.  Had  it  fallen  to  be  edited  by  a  philo 
sophical  inquirer  into  the  origin  and  principles  of 
jurisprudence,  or  an  investigator  of  the  rise  and 
progress  of  cities,  or  a  social  philosopher  of  any 
kind,  it  is  hard  to  say  what  might  have  been  made 
of  it  —  easy  to  say  that  it  would  have  been  made 
something  very  different  from  what  it  is.  The 
editor  was  an  illustrious  genealogist.  Accordingly, 
early  in  his  career  as  expositor  of  the  character  of 


GENERA  LIT1ES.  309 

the  volume,  he  alights  upon  a  proper  name,  not 
entirely  isolated,  but  capable  of  being  associated 
with  other  names.  Thus,  he  is  placed  on  a  groove, 
and  off  he  goes  travelling  in  the  fashion  following 
over  220  pages  of  printed  quarto :  "  Henry  de 
Cornhill,  husband  of  Alice  de  Courcy,  the  heiress 
of  the  Barony  of  Stoke  Courcy  Com.  Somerset,  and 
who,  after  his  decease,  re-married  Warine  Fitz- 
Gerald  the  king's  chamberlain,  leaving  by  each  an 
only  daughter,  co-heirs  of  this  Barony,  of  whom 
Joan  de  Cornhill  was  the  wife  of  Hugh  de  Neville, 
Proto  Forester  of  England,  wife  first  of  Bald  wine 
de  Reviers,  eldest  son  and  heir-apparent  of  William 
de  Vernon,  Earl  of  Devon,  deceased  in  his  father's 
lifetime  ;  and,  secondly,  of  the  well-known  favourite 
of  King  John,  Fulk  de  Breaute,  who  had  name 
from  a  commune  of  the  Canton  of  Goderville,  ar- 
rondissement  of  Le  Havre,  department  of  La  Seine 
Inferieure,  rendered  accompt  of  this  his  debt  in  the 
same  roll ;  "  and  so  on  over  the  remainder  of  the 
220  pages.  If  you  turn  over  a  few  of  them  you 
will  find  the  same  sort  of  thing :  "  Agnes,  the  first 
daughter,  was  married  to  William  de  Vesey,  of 
whom  John  de  Vesey,  issueless,  and  William  de 
Vesey,  who  had  issue,  John  de  Vesey,  who  died 
before  his  father ;  and  afterwards  the  said  William 
de  Vesey,  the  father,  without  heir  of  his  body  ; " 
and  so  on. 

The  reader  whose  fortune  it  has  been  to  pass  a 
portion  of  his  early  days  among  venerable  Scottish 
gentlewomen  of  the  old  school,  will  perhaps  experi- 


310  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

ence  an  uneasy  consciousness  of  having  encountered 
matter  of  this  description  before.  It  may  recall  to 
him  misty  recollections  of  communications  which 
followed  a  course  something  like  this  :  "  And  so  ye 
see,  auld  Pittoddles,  when  his  third  wife  deed,  he 
got  married  upon  the  laird  o'  Blaithershin's  augh- 
teenth  daughter,  that  was  sister  to  Jemima,  that 
was  married  intil  Tarn  Flumexer,  that  was  first  and 
second  cousin  to  the  Pittoddleses,  whase  blither 
became  laird  afterwards,  and  married  Blaithershin's 
Baubie  —  and  that  way  Jemima  became  in  a  kind  o' 
way  her  am  niece  and  her  ain  aunty,  an'  as  we  used 
to  say,  her  gude-brither  was  married  to  his  ain 
grannie." 

But  there  is  the  deep  and  the  shallow  in  geneal 
ogy,  as  in  other  arts  and  sciences,  and,  incoherent 
as  it  may  sound  to  the  uninitiated,  the  introduction 
to  the  Liber  de  Antiquis  Legibus  is  no  old  wom 
an's  work,  but  full  of  science  and  strange  matter.1 
It  all  grows,  however,  in  genealogical  trees,  these 
being  the  predominant  intellectual  growth  in  the 
editor's  mind.  In  fact,  your  thorough  genealogist 

1  I  remember  hearing  of  an  instance  at  a  jury  trial  in  Scot 
land,  where  counsel  had  an  extremely  subtle  point  of  genealogy 
to  make  out,  and  no  one  but  a  ploughman  witness,  totally  desti 
tute  of  the  genealogical  faculty,  to  assist  him  to  it.  His  plan  — 
and  probably  a  very  judicious  one  in  the  general  case  —  was  to 
get  the  witness  on  a  table-land  of  broad  unmistakable  principle, 
and  then  by  degrees  lure  him  farther  on.  Thus  he  got  the  wit 
ness  readily  to  admit  that  his  own  mother  was  older  than  him 
self,  but  no  exertion  or  ingenuity  could  get  his  intellect  a  step 
'beyond  that  broad  admission. 


GENERALITIES.  311 

is  quite  a  peculiar  intellectual  phenomenon.  He  is 
led  on  by  a  special  and  irresistible  internal  influence 
or  genius.  If  he  should  for  some  time  endeavor  to 
strive  after  a  more  cosmopolite  intellectual  vitality, 
the  ruling  spirit  conquers  all  other  pursuits.  The 
organism  of  the  tree  resumes  its  predominance,  and 
if  he  have  healthy  sturdy  brains,  whatever  other 
matter  they  may  have  collected  is  betimes  dragged 
into  the  growth,  and  absorbed  in  the  vitality  of  the 
majestic  bole  and  huge  branches.  There  is  perhaps 
no  pursuit  more  thoroughly  absorbing.  The  reason 
is  this :  No  man  having  yet  made  out  for  himself 
an  articulate  pedigree  from  Adam  —  Sir  Thomas 
Urquhart,  the  translator  of  Rabelais,  to  be  sure, 
made  one  for  himself,  but  he  had  his  tongue  in  his 
cheek  all  the  while  —  no  clear  pedigree  going  back 
to  the  first  of  men,  every  one,  whether  short  or 
long,  Celtic  or  Saxon,  comes  into  the  clouds  at  last. 
It  is  when  a  pedigree  approaches  extinction  that  the 
occasion  opens  for  the  genealogist  to  exercise  his 
subtlety  and  skill,  and  his  exertions  become  all  the 
more  zealous  and  exciting  that  he  knows  he  must 
be  baffled  somewhere.  The  pursuit  is  described  as 
possessing  something  like  the  same  absorbing  influ 
ence  which  is  exercised  over  certain  minds  by  the 
higher  mathematics.  The  devotees  get  to  think 
that  all  human  knowledge  centres  in  their  peculiar 
science  and  the  cognate  mysteries  and  exquisite  sci 
entific  manipulations  of  heraldry,  and  they  may  be 
heard  talking  with  compassionate  contempt  of  some 
one  so  grossly  ignorant  as  not  to  know  a  bar-dexter 


312  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

from  a  bend-sinister,  or  who  asks  what  is  meant  by  a 
cross  potent  quadrate  party  per  pale. 

These  are  generally  great  readers  —  reading  is 
absolutely  necessary  for  their  pursuit  ;  but  they 
have  a  faculty  of  going  over  literary  ground,  pick 
ing  up  the  proper  names,  and  carrying  them  away, 
unconscious  of  anything  else,  as  pointers  go  over 
stubble  fields  and  raise  the  partridges,  without  tak 
ing  any  heed  of  the  valuable  examples  of  crypto- 
gamic  botany  or  palaeozoic  entomology  they  may 
have  trodden  over.  A  certain  writer  on  logic  and 

O 

metaphysics  was  once  as  much  astonished  as  grati 
fied  by  an  eminent  genealogical  antiquary's  expres 
sion  of  interest  in  a  discovery  which  his  last  book 
contained.  The  philosopher  thought  his  views  on 
the  quantification  of  the  predicate  or  on  bifurcate 
analysis  had  at  last  been  appreciated ;  but  the  dis 
covery  was  merely  this,  that  the  name  of  a  person 
who,  according  to  the  previously  imperfect  science 
of  the  genealogist,  ought  not  to  have  existed  then 
and  there,  was  referred  to  in  a  letter  from  Spin 
oza,  cited  in  defence  of  certain  views  upon  the  ab 
solute. 

The  votaries  of  this  pursuit  become  powers  in 
the  world  of  rank  and  birth,  from  the  influence 
they  are  able  to  bring  upon  questions  of  succession 
and  inheritance.  Hence  they  are,  like  all  great  in 
fluences,  courted  and  feared.  Their  ministry  is 
often  desired,  sometimes  necessaiy  ;  but  it  is  re 
ceived  with  misgiving  and  awe,  since,  like  the  de 
mons  of  old  summoned  by  incantation,  they  may 


GENERALITIES.  313 

destroy  the  audacious  mortal  who  demands  their 
services.  The  most  sagacious  and  sceptical  men 
are  apt  to  be  mildly  susceptible  to  conviction  in 
the  matter  of  their  own  pedigrees,  and,  a  little  con 
scious  of  their  weakness,  they  shrink  from  letting 
the  sacred  tree  be  handled  by  relentless  and  unsym- 
pathizing  adepts.  One  of  these  intellectual  tyrants, 
a  man  of  great  ability,  when  he  quarrelled  with 
any  one,  used  to  threaten  to  "  bastardize  "  him,  or 
to  find  the  bend-sinister  somewhere  in  his  ancestry ; 
and  his  experience  in  long  genealogies  made  him 
feel  assured,  in  the  general  case,  of  finding  what  he 
sought  if  he  went  far  enough  back  for  it. 

The  next  volume  you  lay  hand  on  is  manifestly 
edited  by  an  Ecclesiologist,  or  a  votary  of  that  re 
cent  addition  to  the  constituted  "  ologies,"  which 
has  come  into  existence  as  the  joint  offspring  of 
the  revival  of  Gothic  architecture  and  the  study  of 
primitive-church  theology.  Through  this  dim  re 
ligious  light  he  views  all  the  things  in  heaven  and 
earth  that  are  dealt  with  in  his  philosophy.  His 
notes  are  profusely  decorated  with  a  rich  array  of 
rood  screens,  finial  crockets,  lavatories,  aumbries, 
lecterns,  lych  sheds,  albs,  stoups,  sedilia,  credence 
tables,  pixes,  hagioscopes,  baudekyns,  and  squenches. 
It  is  evident  that  he  keeps  a  bestiary,  or  record  of 
his  experiences  in  bestiology,  otherwise  called  bestial 
eikonography ;  and  if  he  be  requested  to  give  a 
more  explicit  definition  of  the  article,  he  will  per 
haps  inform  you  that  it  is  a  record  of  the  types  of 
the  ecclesiological  symbolization  of  beasts.  If  you 


314  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

prevail  on  him  to  exhibit  to  you  this  solemn  record, 
which  he  will  open  with  befitting  reverence,  the 
faintest  suspicion  of  a  smile  curling  on  your  lip  will 
suffuse  him  with  a  lively  sorrow  for  your  lost  con 
dition,  mixed  with  righteous  indignation  towards 
the  irreverent  folly  whereof  you  have  been  guilty. 
He  finds  a  great  deal  beyond  sermons  in  stones, 
and  can  point  out  to  you  a  certain  piece  of  rather 
confused-looking  architecture,  which  he  terms  a 
symbolical  epitome  of  all  knowledge,  human  and 
divine  —  an  eikonographic  encyclopedia. 

If  you  desire  an  antidote  to  all  this,  you  may  find 
it  in  the  editor  in  true  blue  who  so  largely  refers 
to  the  Book  of  the  Universal  Kirk,  The  Hynd  Let 
Loose,  The  Cloud  of  Witnesses,  Naphtali,  and  Faith 
ful  Witness-Bearing  Exemplified,  and  is  great  in 
his  observations  on  the  Auchinshauch  Testimony, 
the  Sanquhar  Declaration,  and  that  fine  amalgama 
tion  of  humility  and  dogmatism,  the  Informatory 
Vindication.1 

There  is  no  occasion  for  quarrelling  with  these 
specialties.  They  are  typical  of  a  zeal  often  prolific 
both  in  amusement  and  instruction  ;  and  when  a 
man  has  gone  through  the  labor  of  rendering  many 
hundreds  of  pages  from  a  crabbed  old  manuscript, 
or  of  translating  as  much  from  a  nearly  unknown 
tongue,  it  would  be  hard  to  deny  him  the  recreation 
of  a  few  capers  on  his  own  hobby.  Keep  in  mind 

1  "  An  Informatory  Vindication  of  a  poor,  wasted,  misrepre 
sented  remnant  of  the  suffering  anti-popish,  anti-prelatic,  anti- 
erastian,  anti-sectarian,  only  true  church  of  Christ  in  Scotland." 


GENERALITIES.  815 

that  everything  of  this  kind  is  outside  the  substance 
of  the  book.  The  editor  has  his  swing  in  the  intro 
duction  and  appendix,  and  the  notes  ;  perhaps  also 
in  the  title  and  index,  if  he  can  make  anything  of 
them.  But  it  is  a  principle  of  honor  throughout 
the  clubs  that  the  purity  of  the  text  shall  not  be 
tampered  with,  and  so,  whether  dark  or  light,  faint 
or  strong,  it  is  a  true  impression  of  the  times,  as 
the  reader  will  perhaps  find  in  the  few  specimens 
I  propose  to  show  him.  As  touching  the  literary 
value  of  what  is  thus  restored,  there  are  some  who 
will  say,  and  get  applause  for  doing  so,  that  there 
are  too  many  bad  or  second-rate  books  in  the  world 
already  ;  that  every  work  of  great  genius  finds  its 
way  to  the  world  at  once  ;  and  that  the  very  fact  of 
its  long  obscurity  proves  a  piece  of  literature  to  be 
of  little  value.  For  all  this,  and  all  that  can  be 
added  to  it,  there  are  those  who  love  these  recov 
ered  relics  of  ancestral  literature,  and  are  prepared 
to  give  reasons  for  their  attachment.  In  the  first 
place,  and  apart  from  their  purely  literary  merits, 
they  are  records  of  the  intellect  and  manners  of 
their  age.  Whoever  desires  really  to  be  acquainted 
with  the  condition  of  a  nation  at  any  particular 
time  —  say  with  that  of  England  during  Elizabeth's 
reign,  or  the  Commonwealth  —  will  not  attain  his 
object  by  merely  reading  the  most  approved  his 
tories  of  the  period.  He  must  endeavor  as  far  as 
he  can  to  live  back  into  the  times,  and  to  do  this 
most  effectually  he  had  better  saturate  himself  to 
the  utmost  with  its  fugitive  literature,  reading 


316  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

every  scrap  lie  may  lay  hand  on  until  he  can  find 
no  more. 

Looking  at  these  relics,  on  the  other  hand,  as 
pure  literature,  no  doubt  what  is  recalled  out  of 
the  past  loses  the  freshness  and  the  fitness  to  sur 
rounding  conditions  which  gave  it  pungency  and 
emphasis  in  its  own  day,  while  it  has  not  that  hold 
on  our  sympathies  and  attachment  possessed  by 
the  household  literature  which  generation  after  gen 
eration  has  been  educated  to  admire,  and  which, 
indeed,  has  made  itself  a  part  of  our  method  of 
thought,  and  our  form  of  language.  But  precisely 
because  it  wants  this  qualification  has  resuscitated 
literature  a  peculiar  value  of  its  own.  It  breaks  in 
with  a  new  light  upon  the  intellect  of  the  day,  and 
its  conventional  forms  and  colors.  There  is  not  in 
the  intellectual  history  of  mankind  any  so  effective 
and  brilliant  an  awakening  as  the  resuscitation  of 
classical  literature.  It  was  not  one  solitary  star 
arising  after  another  at  long  intervals  and  far  apart 
in  space,  but  a  sudden  blazing  forth  of  a  whole  fir 
mament  of  light.  But  that  is  a  phenomenon  to  all 
appearance  not  to  be  repeated,  or,  more  correctly 
speaking,  not  to  be  completed,  since  it  broke  up 
unfinished,  leaving  the  world  in  partial  darkness. 
Literature  has  been  ever  since  wailing  the  loss  of 
the  seventy  per  cent,  of  Livy's  History,  of  the  eighty 
per  cent,  of  Tacitus  and  of  Euripides,  of  the  still 
larger  proportion  of  JEschylus  and  Sophocles,  of  the 
mysterious  triumphs  of  Menander,  and  of  the  whole 
apparatus  of  the  literary  renown  of  Varro  and  of 


GENERALITIES.  317 

Atticus.     What  would  the  learned  world  mve  for 

O 

the  restoration  of  these  things  ?  It  may  safely  offer 
an  indefinite  reward,  for  so  well  has  its  surface  been 
ransacked  for  them  that  their  existence  is  hardly 
possible,  though  some  sanguine  people  enjoy  the 
expectation  of  finding  them  in  some  obscure  back- 
shelves  in  the  Sultan's  library.  The  literary  re 
sults  of  the  costly  and  skilful  scientific  process  for 
restoring  the  baked  books  found  in  Herculaneum 
were  so  appallingly  paltry,  as  to  discourage  the 
pursuit  of  the  lost  classics.  The  best  thing  brought 
to  light  during  the  present  century,  indeed,  is  that 
institute  of  Gaius  which  cost  Angelo  Mai  such  a 
world  of  trouble,  and  was  the  glory  and  boast  of  his 
life ;  but  it  is  not  a  very  popular  or  extensively  read 
book  after  all.  The  manuscripts  that  have  been  ex 
tracted  from  the  dirty  greedy  fingers  of  the  Arme 
nian  and  Abyssinian  monks,  are  the  most  valuable 
pieces  of  literature  that  have  been  rescued  from  the 
far  past.  Important  light  on  the  early  history  of 
eastern  Christianity  will  no  doubt  be  extracted  from 
them  ;  but  they  are  written  in  those  oriental  tongues 
which  are  available  only  to  the  privileged  few. 

Unlikely  as  the  treasures  opened  by  the  revival  of 
classic  literature  are  to  be  to  any  extent  increased, 
let  us  not  despise  the  harvest  of  our  own  home 
gleaners.  They  do  not  find  now  and  then  a  buried 
Hamlet,  or  Paradise  Lost,  or  Hudibras  —  though, 
by  the  way,  the  Poetical  Remains  of  Butler,  which 
in  wit  and  sarcasm  are  second  only  to  his  great 
work,  were  rescued  from  oblivion  by  the  drudging 


318  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

antiquary  Thier,  who  was  so  conceited  of  the  per 
formance  that  he  had  the  portrait  of  his  own  re 
spectable  and  stupid  face  engraved  beside  that  of 
Butler,  in  order  perhaps  that  all  men  might  see 
how  incapable  he  was  of  fabricating  the  pieces  to 
which  it  is  prefixed.  There  is  a  good  deal  of  the 
poetry  of  the  club  books  of  which  it  may  at  least  be 
said,  that  worse  is  printed  and  praised  as  the  prod 
uce  of  our  contemporaries.1 

1  Take,  for  instance,  the  Hymns  or  Sacred  Songs  of  Alexander 
Hume,  a  poet  of  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century,  resuscitated 
by  the  Bannatyne.  One  of  them  called  "  The  Day  Estival,  or 
Thanks  for  a  Summer  Day,"  though  rounded  off  with  a  few 
established  pastoralities,  yet  shows  a  keen  observation  of  pleas 
ing  natural  objects,  and  a  ready  capacity  for  describing  them. 
After  a  short  peroration  we  have  the  morning  twilight  an 
nounced. 

"  The  shadow  of  the  earth  anon 

Removes  and  drawes  by, 
Then  in  the  east,  when  it  is  gone, 
Appears  a  clearer  sky." 

Then  the  sunrise  — 

"  The  golden  globe  incontinent 

Sets  up  his  shining  head, 
And  o'er  the  earth  and  firmament 
Displays  his  beams  abraid. 

"  For  joy  the  birds  with  bolden  throats, 

Against  his  visage  sheen, 
Take  up  their  kindly  music  notes 
In  woods  and  gardens  green. 

"  Up  braids  the  careful  husbandman, 

His  corns  and  vines  to  see, 
And  every  timeous  artisan 
In  booth  works  busily. 


GENERALITIES.  319 

It  is  not  so  much,  however,  in  Poetry  or  the 
Drama  as  in  Historical  literature  that  the  clubs 
develop  their  strength.  It  is  difficult  to  estimate 
the  greatness  of  the  obligations  of  British  history 
to  these  institutions.  They  have  dug  up,  cleansed, 
and  put  in  order  for  immediate  inspection  and  use, 
a  multitude  of  written  monuments  bearing  on  the 

O 

greatest  events  and  the  most  critical  epochs  in  the 
progress  of  the  empire.     The  time  thus  saved  to 

"  The  pastor  quits  the  slothful  sleep, 

And  passes  forth  with  speed, 
His  little  camow-nosed  sheep 
And  rowting  kie  to  feed." 

And  so  the  day  goes  on  until  we  have  this  pleasant  picture  of 
a  sultry  noon  :  — 

"  The  time  so  tranquil  is  and  still, 

That  nowhere  shall  ye  find, 
Save  on  an  high  and  barren  hill, 
The  air  of  peeping  wind. 

"  All  trees  and  simples  great  and  small, 

That  balmy  leaf  do  bear, 
Nor  they  were  painted  on  a  wall, 
No  more  they  move  or  stir. 

"  Calm  is  the  deep  and  purpure  see, 

Yea,  smoother  than  the  sand ; 
The  wells  that  weltering  wont  to  be 
Are  stable  like  the  land. 

"  So  silent  is  the  cessile  air, 
That  every  cry  and  call 
The  hills  and  dails  and  forest  fair 
Again  repeat  them  all. 

"  The  rivers  fresh,  the  caller  streams, 

Doun  rocks  can  softly  rin, 
The  water  clear  like  crystel  seems, 
And  makes  a  pleasant  din." 


320  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

investigators  is  great  and  priceless.  In  no  other 
department  of  knowledge  can  the  intellectual  la 
borer  more  forcibly  apply  the  Latin  proverb  which 
warns  him  that  his  work  is  indefinite  but  his  life 
brief.  In  the  ordinary  sciences  the  philosopher 
may  and  often  does  content  himself  with  the  well- 
rounded  and  professedly  completed  system  of  the 

Then  follow  a  variety  of  sketches  of  still  and  active  life,  appro 
priate  to  the  several  periods  of  the  day's  progress ;  and  at  last 
evening  brings  its  own  peculiar  beauties  :  — 

"  The  gloaming  comes,  the  day  is  spent, 

The  sun  goes  out  of  sight, 
And  painted  is  the  Occident 
With  purpour  sanguine  bright. 

"  The  scarlet  nor  the  golden  thread, 

Who  would  their  beauties  try, 
Are  nothing  like  the  colour  red 
And  beauty  of  the  sky. 

"  Our  west  horizon  circular, 
Fra  time  the  sun  be  .>-et, 
Is  all  with  rubies,  as  it  were, 
Or  roses  red  o'erset. 

"  What  pleasure  were  to  walk  and  see, 

Endlong  a  river  clear, 
The  perfect  form  of  every  tree 
Within  the  deep  appear! 

"  The  salmon  out  of  cruives  and  creels, 

Uphalled  into  skoutts, 
The  bells  and  circles  on  the  wells 
Through  louping  of  the  trouts. 

"  0  then  it  were  a  seemly  thing, 

While  all  is  still  and  calm, 
The  praise  of  God  to  play  and  sing, 
With  cornet  and  with  pscham." 


GENERALITIES.  321 

day.  But  no  one  can  grapple  with  history  without 
feeling  its  inexhaustibleness.  Its  final  boundaries 
seem  only  to  retreat  to  a  farther  distance  the  more 
ground  we  master,  as  Mr.  Buckle  found,  when  he 
betook  himself,  like  another  Atlas,  to  grapple  with 
the  history  of  the  whole  world. 

The  more  an  investigator  finds  his  materials 
printed  for  him,  the  farther  he  can  go.  No  doubt 
it  is  sometimes  desirable,  even  necessary,  to  look  to 
some  manuscript  authority  for  the  clearing-up  of  a 
special  point ;  but  too  often  the  profession  of  having 
perused  a  great  mass  of  manuscript  authorities  is  an 
affectation  and.  a  pedantry.  He  who  searches  for 
and  finds  the  truth  in  any  considerable  portion  of 
history,  performs  too  great  an  achievement  to  care 
for  the  praise  of  deciphering  a  few  specimens  of  dif 
ficult  handwriting,  and  revealing  the  sense  hidden 
in  certain  words  couched  in  obsolete  spelling.  If 
casual  discoveries  of  this  kind  do  really  help  him  to 
great  truths,  it  is  well ;  but  it  too  often  happens 
that  he  exaggerates  their  value,  because  they  are 
his  own  game,  shot  on  his  own  manor.  Until  he 
has  exhausted  all  that  is  in  print,  the  student  of  his 
tory  wastes  his  time  in  struggling  with  manuscripts. 
Hence  the  value  of  the  services  of  the  book  clubs  in 
immensely  widening  the  arena  of  his  immediate  ma 
terials.  To  him  their  volumes  are  as  new  tools  to 
the  mechanic,  or  new  machinery  to  the  manufac 
turer.  They  economize,  as  it  is  termed,  his  labor : 
more  correctly  speaking,  they  increase  its  produc 
tiveness. 

21 


322  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

These  books  are  fortunately  rich  in  memorials  of 
the  great  internal  contest  of  the  seventeenth  century. 
Take,  for  instance,  the  notes  of  the  proceedings  of 
the  Long  Parliament,  by  Sir  Ralph  Verney,  edited 
for  the  Camden  by  Mr.  Bruce.  They  come  upon 
us  fresh  from  that  scene  of  high  debate,  carrying 
with  them  the  very  marks  of  strife.  The  editor 
informs  us  that  the  manuscript  is  written  almost 
entirely  in  pencil  on  slips  of  foolscap  paper,  which 
seem  to  have  been  so  folded  as  to  be  conveniently 
placed  on  the  knee,  and  transferred  to  the  pocket 
as  each  was  completed.  "  They  are,"  he  says, 
"  full  of  abrupt  terminations,  as  if  the  writer  occa 
sionally  gave  up  the  task  of  following  a  rapid 
speaker  who  had  got  beyond  him,  and  began  his 
note  afresh.  When  they  relate  to  resolutions  of 
the  House,  they  often  contain  erasures,  alterations, 
or  other  marks  of  the  haste  with  which  the  notes 
were  jotted  down,  and  of  the  changes  which  took 
place  in  the  subject-matter  during  the  progress  tow 
ards  completion.  On  several  important  occasions, 
and  especially  in  the  instanc^of  the  debate  on  the 
Protestation  [as  to  the  impeachment  of  Strafford], 
the  confusion  and  irregularity  of  the  notes  give  evi 
dence  to  the  excitement  of  the  House ;  and  when 
the  public  discord  rose  higher,  the  notes  become 
more  brief  and  less  personal,  and  speeches  are  less 
frequently  assigned  to  their  speakers,  either  from 
greater  difficulty  in  reporting,  or  from  an  increased 
feeling  of  the  danger  of  the  time,  and  the  possible 
use  that  might  be  made  of  notes  of  violent  remarks. 


JOHN  SPALDING.  323 

On  several  of  the  sheets  there  are  marks  evidently 
made  by  the  writer's  pencil  having  been  forced  up 
wards  suddenly,  as  if  by  some  one,  in  a  full  House, 
pressing  hastily  against  his  elbow  while  he  was  in 
the  act  of  taking  his  note." 


Joljn 


OOKING  from  the  opposite  end  of  the- 
island,  and  from  a  totally  different  social 
position,  another  watchful  observer  re 
corded  the  events  of  the  great  contest. 

o 

This  was  John  Spalding,  commonly  supposed  to 
have  been  Commissary-Clerk  of  Aberdeen,  but  pos 
itively  known  in  no  other  capacity  than  as  author 
of  the  book  aptly  entitled  The  Troubles,  or,  more 
fully,  "  Memorials  of  the  Troubles  in  Scotland  and 
in  England,"  from  1624  to  1645.  Little,  probably, 
did  the  Commissary- Clerk  imagine,  when  he  entered 
on  his  snug  quiet  office,  where  he  recorded  probates 
of  wills  and  the  proceedings  in  questions  of  mar 
riage  law,  that  he  was  to  witness  and  record  one  of 
the  most  momentous  conflicts  that  the  world  ever 
beheld  —  that  contest  which  has  been  the  prototype 
of  all  later  European  convulsions.  Less  still  could 
he  have  imagined  that  fame  would  arise  for  him 
after  two  hundred  years  —  that  vehement  though 
vain  efforts  should  be  made  to  endow  the  simple 
name  of  John  Spalding  with  the  antecedents  and 


324  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

subsequents  of  a  biographical  existence,  and  that 
the  far-off  descendants  of  many  of  those  lairds  and 
barons,  whose  warlike  deeds  he  noticed  at  humble 
distance,  should  raise  a  monument  to  his  memory 
in  an  institution  called  by  his  name.  He  was  evi 
dently  a  thoroughly  retiring  man,  for  he  has  left  no 
vestige  whatever  of  his  individuality.  Some  speci 
mens  of  his  formal  official  work  might  have  been 
found  in  the  archives  of  his  office  —  these  would 
have  been  especially  valuable  for  the  identification 
of  his  handwriting  and  the  settlement  of  disputed 
questions  about  the  originality  of  manuscripts  ;  but 
these  documents,  as  it  happens,  were  all  burnt  early 
in  last  century  with  the  building  containing  them. 
So  ardent  and  hot  has  been  the  chase  after  vestiges 
of  this  man,  that  the  fact  was  once  discovered  that 
with  his  own  hand  he  had  written  a  certain  deed 
..concerning  a  feu-duty  or  rent-charge  of  X25  7s.  4d., 
(bearing  date  31st  January,  1663  ;  but  in  spite  of 
.the  most  resolute  efforts,  this  interesting  document 
has  not  been  found. 

It  is  probably  to  this  same  unobtrusive  reserve, 
which  has  shrouded  his  very  identity,  that  we  owe 
the  valuable  peculiarities  of  the  Commissary-Clerk's 
chronicle.  He  sought  no  public  distinctions,  took 
no  ostensible  side,  and  must  have  kept  his  own 
thoughts  to  himself,  otherwise  he  would  have  had 
to  bear  record  of  his  own  share  of  troubles.  In 
itliis  calm  serenity,  folding  the  arms  of  resignation 
on  the  bosom  of  patience  as  the  Persians  say,  lie 
took  his  notes  of  the  wild  contest  that  raged  around 


JOHN  SPALDING.  325 

him,  setting  down  each  event,  great  or  small,  with 
systematic  deliberation,  as  if  he  were  an  experi 
mental  philosopher  watching  the  phenomena  of  an 
eclipse  or  an  eruption.  Hence  nowhere,  perhaps, 
has  it  been  permitted  to  a  mere  reader  to  have  so 
good  a  peep  behind  the  scenes  of  the  mighty  drama 
of  war.  We  have  plenty  of  chroniclers  of  that 
epoch  —  marching  us  with  swinging  historic  stride 
on  from  battle  unto  battle  —  great  in  describing  in 
long  sentences  the  musterings,  the  conflicts,  and  the 
retreats.  In  Spalding,  however,  we  shall  find  the 
numbers  and  character  of  the  combatants,  their 
arms,  their  dresses,  the  persons  who  paid  for  these, 
and  the  prices  paid  —  the  amount  they  obtained  in 
pay,  and  the  amount  they  were  cheated  out  of  — 
their  banners,  distinguishing  badges,  watchwords, 
and  all  other  like  particulars,  set  down  with  the 
minuteness  of  a  bailiff  making  an  inventory  of 
goods  on  which  he  has  taken  execution.  He  is 
very  specific  in  what  one  may  term  the  negative 
side  of  the  characteristics  of  war  —  the  misery  and 
desolation  it  spreads  around.  The  losses  of  this 
"gudeman"  and  that  lone  widow  are  stated  as  if 
he  were  their  law  agent,  making  up  an  account  to 
go  to  a  jury  for  damages  for  the  "  spulzie  of  outside 
and  inside  plenishing,  nolt,  horse,  sheep,  cocks  and 
hens,  hay,  corn,  peats,  and  fodder."  He  specifies 
all  the  items  of  mansions  and  farm-houses  attacked* 
and  looted,  or  "harried,"  as  he  calls  it  —  the  doors> 
staved  in,  the  wainscoting  pulled  down  —  the  win 
dows  smashed  —  the  furniture  made  firewood  of  — 


BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

the  pleasant  plantations  cut  down  to  build  sleeping- 
huts  —  the  linen,  plate,  and  other  valuables  carried 
off:  he  will  even,  perchance,  tell  how  they  were 
distributed  —  who  it  was  that  managed  to  feather 
his  nest  with  the  plunder,  and  who  it  was  that  was 
disappointed  and  cheated. 

He  had  opportunities  of  bestowing  his  descriptive 
powers  to  good  purpose.  Besides  its  ordinary  share 
in  the  vicissitudes  and  calamities  of  the  war,  his 
town  of  Aberdeen  was  twice  pillaged  by  Montrose, 
with  laudable  impartiality — once  for  the  Covenant 
ers  and  once  for  the  Royalists.  Here  is  his  first  tri 
umphant  entry :  — 

"  Upon  the  morne,  being  Saturday,  they  came  in 
order  of  battle,  being  well  armed  both  on  horse  and 
foot,  ilk  horseman  having  five  shot  at  the  least, 
whereof  he  had  ane  carbine  in  his  hand,  two  pistols 
by  his  sides,  and  other  two  at  his  saddle-torr  ;  the 
pikemen  in  their  ranks  with  pike  and  sword  ;  the 
musketeers  in  their  ranks  with  musket,  musket- 
staff,  bandolier,  sword,  powder,  ball,  and  match. 
Ilk  company,  both  horse  and  foot,  had  their  cap 
tains,  lieutenants,  ensigns,  sergeants,  and  other  offi 
cers  and  commanders,  all  for  the  most  part  in  buff 
coats  and  goodly  order.  They  had  five  colors  or 
ensigns,  whereof  the  Earl  of  Montrose  had  one  hav 
ing  his  motto  drawn  in  letters,  4  For  Religion,  the 
Covenant,  and  the  Countrie.'  The  Earl  Marechal 
had  one,  the  Earl  of  Kinghorn  had  one,  and  the 
town  of  Dundee  had  two.  They  had  trumpeters 
to  ilk  company  of  horsemen,  and  drummers  to  ilk 


JOHN  SPALDING.  327 

company  of  footmen.  They  had  their  meat,  drink, 
and  other  provisions,  bag  and  baggage,  carried  with 
them,  done  all  by  advice  of  his  Excellency  Field- 
Marshal  Leslie,  whose  counsel  General  Montrose 
followed  in  this  business.  Then,  in  seemly  order 
and  good  array,  this  army  came  forward  and  en 
tered  the  burgh  of  Aberdeen,  about  ten  hours  in 
the  morning,  at  the  Over  Kirk  gateport,  syne  came 
do\vn  through  the  Broadgate,  through  the  Castle- 
gate,  over  at  the  Justice  Port  to  the  Queen's  Links 
directly.  Here  it  is  to  be  noted  that  few  or  none 
of  this  haill  army  wanted  ane  blue  ribbon  hung 
about  his  craig  [viz.,  neck]  under  his  left  arm, 
whilk  they  called  '  the  Covenanters'  ribbon,'  be 
cause  the  Lord  Gordon  and  some  other  of  the 
Marquis's  bairns  had  ane  ribbon,  when  he  was 
dwelling  in  the  toun,  of  ane  red  flesh  color,  which 
they  wore  in  their  hats,  and  called  it  '  the  royal 
ribbon,'  as  a  sign  of  their  love  and  loyalty  to  the 
King.  In  dispite  or  dirision  whereof  this  blue  rib 
bon  was  worn  and  called  '  the  Covenanters'  ribbon ' 
by  the  haill  soldiers  of  this  army." 

The  well-ordered  army  passed  through,  levying 
a  fine  on  the  Malignants,  and  all  seemed  well ;  but 
because  the  citizens  had  not  resisted  Montrose,  the 
loyal  barons  in  the  neighborhood  fell  on  them  and 
plundered  them  ;  and  because  they  had  submitted 
to  be  so  plundered,  the  Covenanting  army  came 
back  and  plundered  them  also.  "  Many  of  this 
company  went  and  brack  up  the  Bishop's  yetts,  set 
on  good  fires  of  his  peats  standing  within  the  close : 


328  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

they  masterfully  broke  up  the  haill  doors  and  win 
dows  of  this  stately  house ;  they  brake  down  beds, 
boards,  aumries,  glassen  windows,  took  out  the  iron 
stauncheons,  brake  in  the  locks,  and  such  as  they 
could  carry  had  with  them,  and  sold  for  little  or 
nothing  ;  but  they  got  none  of  the  Bishop's  plen 
ishing  to  speak  of,  because  it  was  all  conveyed  away 
before  their  coming."  On  Sunday,  Montrose  and 
the  other  leaders  duly  attended  the  devotional  ser 
vices  of  the  eminent  Covenanting  divines  they  had 
brought  with  them.  "  But,"  says  Spalding,  "  the 
renegate  soldiers,  in  time  of  both  preachings,  is 
abusing  and  plundering  New  Aberdeen  pitifully, 
without  regard  to  God  or  man  ;  "  and  he  goes  on 
in  his  specific  way,  describing  the  plundering  until 
he  reaches  this  climax  :  "  No  foul  —  cock  or  hen  — 
left  unkilled.  The  haill  house-dogs,  messens,  and 
whelps  within  Aberdeen  felled  and  slain  upon  the 
gate,  so  that  neither  hound  nor  messen  or  other  dog 
was  left  that  they  could  see."  But  there  was  a 
special  reason  for  this.  The  ladies  of  Aberdeen, 
on  the  retiring  of  Montrose's  army,  had  decorated 
all  the  vagabond  street-dogs  with  the  blue  ribbon 
of  the  Covenant. 

This  was  in  1639.  Five  years  afterwards  Mon 
trose  came  back  on  them  in  more  terrible  guise 
still,  to  punish  the  town  for  having  yielded  to  the 
Covenant.  In  Aberdeen,  Cavalier  principles  gen 
erally  predominated  ;  but  after  being  overrun  and 
plundered  successively  by  either  party,  the  Cov 
enanters,  having  the  acting  government  of  the 


JOHN  SPALDING.  329 

country  at  their  back,  succeeded  in  establishing  a 
predominance  in  the  councils  of  the  exhausted 
community.  Spalding  had  no  respect  for  the  civic 
and  rural  forces  they  attempted  to  embody,  and 
speaks  of  a  petty  bailie  "  who  brought  in  ane  drill- 
master  to  learn  our  poor  bodies  to  handle  their 
arms,  who  had  more  need  to  handle  the  plough  and 
win  their  livings."  Montrose  had  now  with  him 

O 

his  celebrated  army  of  Highlanders  —  or  Irish,  as 
Spalding  calls  them  —  who  broke  at  a  rush  through 
the  feeble  force  sent  out  of  the  town  to  meet  them. 
Montrose  "  follows  the  chase  to  Aberdeen,  his  men 
hewing  and  cutting  down  all  manner  of  men  they 
could  overtake  within  the  town,  upon  the  streets, 
or  in  their  houses,  and  round  about  the  town,  as 
our  men  were  fleeing,  with  broadswords,  but  mercy 
or  remeid.  These  cruel  Irish,  seeing  a  man  well 
clad,  would  first  tyr  [i.  e.,  strip]  him  and  save  the 
clothes  unspoiled,  then  kill  the  man  ;  .  .  .  nothing 
heard  but  pitiful  howling,  crying,  weeping,  mourn 
ing,  through  all  the  streets.  ...  It  is  lamentable  to 
hear  how  thir  Irishes,  who  had  gotten  the  spoil  of 
the  town,  did  abuse  the  samin.  The  men  that  they 
killed  they  would  not  suffer  to  be  buried,  but  tirled 
them  of  their  clothes,  syne  left  their  naked  bodies 
lying  above  the  ground.  The  wife  durst  not  cry 
nor  weep  at  her  husband's  slaughter  before  her 
eyes,  nor  the  mother  for  her  son  —  which  if  they 
were  heard,  then  they  were  presently  slain  also, 
.  .  .  and  none  durst  bury  the  dead.  Yea,  and  I 
saw  two  corpses  carried  to  the  burial  through  the 


330  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

old  town  with  women  only,  and  not  ane  man 
amongst  them,  so  that  the  naked  corpses  lay  un- 
buried  so  long  as  these  limmers  were  ungone  to 
the  camp." 

The  Commissary-Clerk  was  on  Montrose's  side, 
but  he  had  the  hatred  of  a  Lowlander  of  that  day 
for  the  Highlanders.  He  has  a  great  many  amusing 
episodes  describing  the  light-handed  lads  from  the 
hills  coming  down,  and  in  the  general  confusion  of 
the  times  plundering  Cavalier  and  Covenanter  alike; 
and  on  these  occasions  he  drops  his  usual  placidity 
and  becomes  rabid  and  abusive,  as  the  best-tempered 
Americans  are  said  to  become  when  they  speak  of 
niggers,  and  deals  out  to  them  the  terms  —  limmers, 
thieves,  robbers,  cut-throats,  masterful  vagrants,  and 
so  forth,  with  great  volubility.1  Of  some  of  their 

1  [It  would  be  more  satisfactory  if  this  statement  were  some 
what  more  specific  ;  if  we  knew  who  were  meant  by  "  the 
Americans,"  and  by  whom  they  are  said  to  become  "  rabid  and 
abusive  when  they  speak  of  niggers."  If  by  the  Americans 
are  meant  the  fire-eating  slaveholders  and  the  poor-white  trash 
which  lives  upon  their  refuse  and  does  their  dirty  work,  the 
justice  of  the  remark  must  be  admitted.  This  sort  of  American 
is  rabid  and  abusive  enough  upon  the  subject  of  "niggers." 
The  London  "  Morning  Herald "  itself  upon  the  subject  of 
"  Yankees  "  can  hardly  surpass  the  richness  and  pungency  of 
his  vocabulary  ;  the  style  of  every  true  Briton  a  few  years  ago 
when  he  spoke  of  Frenchmen  went  little  beyond  it,  even  in  pro 
fanity.  But  outside  of  the  fellowship  above  named  are  about 
twenty  millions  of  people  sometimes  designated  as  Americans, 
for  want  of  a  better  name,  among  whom  this  book  will  find  its 
readers,  and  who  will  be  surprised  and  doubtless  gratified  to 
learn  how  very  foul-mouthed  they  become  when  they  speak  of 
a  subject  in  which  their  concern  is  not  at  all  of  a  personal,  but 
purely  of  a  public  and  philanthropic  nature.  —  W.] 


ROBERT  WODROW.  331 

chiefs,  renowned  in  history,  he  speaks  as  mere 
robber-leaders,  and  when  they  are  known  by  one 
name  in  their  own  country  and  another  in  the  Low 
lands,  he  puts  an  alias  between  the  two.  The  very 
initial  words  of  his  chronicle  are,  "  Efter  the  death 
and  burial  of  Angus  Macintosh  of  Auldterlie,  alias 
Angus  Williamson." 

Montrose  having  departed,  Argyle's  troops  com 
menced  to  plunder  the  district  for  having  submitted 
to  his  enemy,  and  these,  being  doubly  offensive  as 
Covenanters  and  Highlanders,  are  treated  accord 
ingly.  But  it  is  necessary  to  be  impartial ;  and 
having  bestowed  so  much  on  the  Cavalier  annalist, 
let  us  take  a  glimpse  at  the  other  side. 


Hobnrt  tUoiroto. 

ROM  the  collections  of  the  Reverend 
Robert  Wodrow,  the  historian  of  The 
Sufferings  of  the  Church  of  Scotland, 
a  rich  harvest  has  been  reaped  by  the 
northern  clubs,  one  of  which  appropriately  adopted 
his  name.  He  was  a  voluminous  writer  and  an  in 
exhaustible  collector.  It  is  generally  classed  among 
the  failings  of  the  book-hunter  that  he  looks  only  to 
the  far  past,  and  disregards  the  contemporary  and 
the  recent.  Wodrow  was  a  valuable  exception  to 
this  propensity.  Reversing  the  spirit  of  the  selfish 
bull  which  asks  what  posterity  has  done  for  us,  he 


332  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

stored  up  contemporary  literature  for  subsequent 
generations ;  and  he  thus  left,  at  the  commencement 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  such  a  library  as  a  collec 
tor  of  the  nineteenth,  could  he  have  sent  a  caterer 
before  him,  would  have  prepared  to  await  his  arrival 
in  the  world.  The  inestimable  value  of  the  great 
collection  of  the  civil-war  pamphlets  made  by  George 
Thomason,  and  fortunately  preserved  in  the  British 
Museum,  is  very  well  known.  Just  such  another 
of  its  kind  is  Wodrow's,  made  up  of  the  pamphlets, 
broadsides,  pasquinades,  and  other  fugitive  pieces  of 
his  own  day,  and  of  the  generation  immediately 
preceding.  These  are  things  easily  obtained  in  their 
freshness,  but  the  term  fugitive  is  too  expressive  of 
their  nature,  and  after  a  generation  or  two  they  have 
all  flown  away,  save  those  which  the  book-hunter 
has  exorcised  into  the  vaults  of  some  public  collec 
tion.  There  is  perhaps  too  little  done  in  our  own 
day  in  preserving  for  posterity  these  mute  witnesses 
of  our  sayings  and  doings.  They  are  too  light  and 
volatile  to  be  caught  by  the  Copyright  Act,  which 
so  carefully  deposits  our  quartos  and  octavos  in  the 
privileged  libraries.  It  is  pleasant,  by  the  way,  at 
this  moment,  to  observe  that  the  eminent  scholar 
who  has  charge  of  the  chief  portion  of  AVodrow's 
gatherings,  as  keeper  of  the  Advocates'  Library,  is 
following  his  example,  by  preserving  a  collection  of 
the  pamphlets  of  the  present  century  which  will 
keep  our  posterity  in  employment,  if  they  desire  to 
unwind  the  intricacies  of  all  our  civil  and  ecclesias 
tical  sayings  and  doings. 


ROBERT    WODROW.  333 

Wodrow  carried  on  an  active  correspondence 
about  matters  of  contemporary  policy,  and  the  spe 
cial  inquiries  connected  with  his  History :  selections 
from  this  mass  have  furnished  three  sturdy  volumes. 
Besides  pamphlets,  he  scraped  together  quantities  of 
other  people's  manuscripts  —  some  of  them  rising 
high  enough  in  importance  to  be  counted  State 
papers.  How  the  minister  of  the  quiet  rural  parish 
of  Eastwood  could  have  got  his  hands  on  them  is  a 
marvel,  but  it  is  fortunate  that  they  were  saved  from 
destruction  ;  and  it  is  nearly  equally  fortunate  that 
they  have  been  well  ransacked  by  zealous  club-book 
makers,  who  have  by  this  time  probably  exhausted 
the  better  part  of  their  material.  In  the  next  place, 
Wodrow  left  behind  several  biographies  of  eminent 
members  of  his  own  Church,  its  saints  and  martyrs ; 
and  goodly  masses  out  of  this  storehouse  have  also 
been  printed. 

But  by  far  the  most  luxurious  morsel  in  the 
worthy  man's  intellectual  larder  was  not  intended 
to  reach  the  profane  vulgar,  but  destined  for  his 
own  special  rumination.  It  consists  in  the  veritable 
contents  of  his  private  note-books,  containing  his 
communings  with  his  own  heart  and  his  imagina 
tion.  They  were  written  on  small  slips  of  paper,  in 
a  hand  direly  cramped  and  minute  ;  and  lest  this 
should  not  be  a  sufficient  protection  to  their  privacy, 
a  portion  was  committed  to  certain  ciphers,  which 
their  ingenious  inventor  deemed,  no  doubt,  to  be 
utterly  impregnable.  In  stenography,  however,  the 
art  of  lock-picking  always  keeps  ahead  of  the  art  of 


334  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

locking,  as  that  of  inventing  destructive  missiles 
seems  to  outstrip  that  of  forging  impenetrable  plates. 
Wodrow's  trick  was  the  same  as  that  of  Samuel 
Pepys,  and  productive  of  the  same  consequences  — 
the  excitement  of  a  rabid  curiosity,  which  at  last 
found  its  way  into  the  recesses  of  his  secret  com- 
munings.  They  are  now  printed,  in  the  fine  type 
of  the  Maitland  Club,  in  four  portly  quartos,  under 
the  title,  Wodrow's  Analecta.  Few  books  would 
hold  out  so  much  temptation  to  a  commentator,  but 
their  editor  is  dumb,  faithfully  reprinting  the  whole, 
page  by  page,  and  abstaining  both  from  introduc 
tion  and  explanatory  foot-note. 

Perhaps  in  the  circumstances  this  was  a  prudent 
measure.  Those  who  enjoy  the  weaknesses  of  the 
enthusiastic  historian  have  them  at  full  length.  As 
to  others  partially  like-minded  with  him,  but  more 
worldly,  who  would  rather  that  such  a  tissue  of 
absurdities  had  not  been  revealed,  they  are  bound 
over  to  silence,  seeing  that  a  word  said  against  the 
book  is  a  word  of  reproach  against  its  idolized  author 
— for  as  to  the  editor,  he  may  repeat  after  Macbeth, 
"  Thou  canst  not  say  I  did  it." 

Mr.  Buckle's  ravenous  researches  into  the  most 
distant  recesses  of  literature  revealed  to  him  this 
pose.  He  has  taken  some  curious  specimens  out 
of  it,  but  he  might  have  made  his  anthology  still 
richer  had  he  been  in  search  of  the  picturesque  and 
ludicrous,  instead  of  seeking  solid  support  for  his 
great  theory  of  positivism.  What  he  chiefly  amuses 
one  with  in  this  part  of  the  world,  however,  is  the 


EGBERT  WODROW.  335 

solemn  manner  in  which  he  treats  the  responsibility 
of  giving  increased  publicity  to  such  things,  and 
invokes  the  Deity  to  witness  that  his  objects  are 
sincere,  and  he  is  influenced  by  no  irreverence. 
This  feeling  may  arise  from  a  very  creditable  source, 
but  a  native  of  Scotland  has  difficulty  in  under 
standing  it.  In  this  country,  being,  as  many  of  us 
have  been,  within  the  very  skirts  of  the  great  con 
tests  that  have  shaken  the  realm  —  Jacobitism  on 
the  one  hand  and  Covenantism  on  the  other  —  we 
are  roughened  and  hardened,  and  what  shocks  our 
sensitive  neighbors  is  very  good  fun  to  ourselves. 

It  appears  that  Wodrow  had  intended  to  publish 
a  book  on  remarkable  special  providences  —  some 
thing  of  a  scientific  character  it  was  to  be,  contain 
ing  a  classification  of  their  phenomena,  perhaps  a 
theory  of  their  connection  with  revealed  religion. 
The  natural  laws  by  which  they  are  ruled,  he  could 
not,  of  course,  have  sought  to  discover,  since  the 
principle  on  which  he  set  out  predicated  the  non- 
existence  of  such  laws.  The  advantage  of  the  peep 
enjoyed  into  his  private  note-book  is,  that  we  have 
his  incornpleted  inquiries  containing  the  stories  as 
to  which  even  he  —  a  very  poor  adept  at  scepticism 
—  required  some  confirmation.  It  is  quite  evident 
that  we  thus  have  something  more  valuable  to  phi 
losophy,  and  infinitely  more  amusing,  than  his  com 
pleted  labors  would  have  been.  Here,  for  instance, 
is  one  of  his  break-downs  —  an  interesting  phenom 
enon,  but  not  irrefragably  proved  :  — 

"  This  day  I  have  an  accompt  from  Marion  Ste- 


330  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

venson,  who  says  she  had  it  from  one  who  was  wit 
ness  to  it,  that  near  Danglass  there  was  a  child 
found  upon  the  highway  by  some  shearers,  to  their 
uptaking  lately  born ;  and  they  brought  it  to  the 
next  house,  where  the  woman  putting  on  the  pan 
to  make  some  meat  for  it,  the  pan  filled  full  of  corn  ; 
and  when  she  turned  it  out  and  put  it  on  the  second 
time,  it  filled  full  of  bear ;  and  when  put  on  the 
third  time,  it  filled  full  of  blood  ;  and  upon  this  the 
child  began  to  alter  its  shapes  some  way,  and  to 
speak,  and  told  them  this  year  should  have  great 
plenty,  and  the  next  year  also,  but  the  third  the 
land  should  be  filled  with  blood  and  fire  and  sword ! 
and  the  child  desired  it  might  be  taken  to  the  place 
where  it  was  found,  and  left  there.  I  hear  not  yet 
what  was  done  with  it.  This  is  so  incredible,  that 
I  set  it  down  only  for  after  trial  and  inquiry  about 
it  —  no  confirmation." 

His  wife  tells  him  a  story  which  in  her  youth  she 
had  heard  narrated  by  Mr.  Andrew  Reid,  minister 
of  Kirkbean.  It  is  a  case  of  true  love  crossed  bv 
the  interference  of  cruel  relations.  The  swain  leaves 
the  country  for  several  years  —  gets  on  —  remem 
bers  the  old  love,  and  returns  to  fulfil  his  vows.  It 
happens  that  on  the  day  of  his  return  the  loved  one 
dies.  He  is  on  his  way  to  her  house  in  the  dusk  of 
eve  when  he  meets  an  old  man,  who  tells  him  that 
he  is  going  on  a  bootless  errand  —  he  will  find  a 
dead  corpse  for  the  warm  living  heart  he  expected. 
The  stranger,  however,  pitying  his  distress,  tells 
him  there  is  a  remedy  —  hands  to  the  lover  certain 


ROBERT   WODROW.  337 

pills,  and  says,  "  If  you  will  give  her  these,  she  will 
recover."  So  it  turned  out,  and  they  were  happily 
married.  A  certain  visitor  at  the  house,  however, 
"  a  very  eminent  Christian,"  refused  to  salute  the 
lady  with  the  usual  courtesies.  He  takes  the  hus 
band  aside,  "  and  tells  him  that  he  was  very  much 
persuaded  his  wife  was  a  devil,  and  indeed  he  could 
not  salute  her ;  and  after  some  discourse  prevailed 
so  far  with  him  as  to  follow  his  advice,  which  was 
to  go  with  her  and  take  her  to  that  room  where  he 
found  her,  and  lay  her  down  upon  the  bed  where 
he  found  her,  and  quit  her  of  a  devil.  Which  he 
did,  and  immediately  she  became  a  dead  corpse  half 
consumed."  "  This  had  need,"  says  cautious  Wod- 
row,  "to  be  weel  attested,  and  I  have  writ  to  Mr. 
Reid  anent  it."  Curiosity  urged  me  to  look  for  and 
find  among  Wodrow's  manuscripts  Mr.  Reid's  an 
swer.  He  says  he  often  heard  the  story  from  his 
father  as  a  truth,  but  had  been  unaccountably  neg 
ligent  in  noting  the  particulars  of  it ;  and  then  he 
favors  his  correspondent  with  some  special  provi 
dences  anent  himself,  which  appear  not  to  have  been 
sufficiently  pungent  for  Wodrow's  taste. 

A  philosophical  investigator  of  the  established 
national  superstitions  would  find  excellent  types  of 
all  of  them  in  the  Analecta.  In  the  department 
of  second-sight,  for  instance,  restricted,  with  due  ob 
servance  to  geographical  propriety,  within  the  High 
land  line,  a  guest  disturbs  a  convivial  meeting  at 
Blair-Athol  by  exclaiming  that  he  beholds  a  dirk 

22 


338  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

sticking  in  the  breast  of  their  entertainer.  That 
night  he  is  stabbed  to  the  heart ;  and  even  while 
the  seer  beheld  the  visionary  dagger,  a  bare-legged 
gilly  was  watching  outside  to  execute  a  long-cher 
ished  Highland  vengeance.  The  Marquess  of  Ar- 
gyle,  who  was  afterwards  beheaded,  was  playing 
with  some  of  his  clan  at  bowls,  or  bullets,  as  AVod- 
row  calls  them,  for  he  was  not  learned  in  the  no 
menclature  of  vain  recreations.  "  One  of  the  play 
ers,  when  the  Marquess  stooped  down  to  lift  the 
bullet,  fell  pale,  and  said  to  them  about  him,  '  Bless 
me  !  what  is  that  I  see?  —  my  Lord  with  the  head 
off,  and  all  his  shoulders  full  of  blood.' ' 

In  the  department  of  fairy  tricks,  the  infant  of 
Thomas  Paton,  "  a  very  eminent  Christian,"  in  its 
first  use  of  speech,  rattles  out  a  volley  of  terrific 
oaths,  then  eats  two  cheeses,  and  attempts  to  cut 
•its  brother's  throat.  This  was  surely  sufficient 
-evidence  to  satisfy  the  most  sceptical  that  it  was  a 
•changeling,  even  had  it  not,  as  the  result  of  certain 
well-applied  prayers,  "  left  the  house  with  an  ex 
traordinary  howling  and  crying." 

Ghost  and  witch  stories  abound.  The  following 
is  selected  on  account  of  the  eminence  of  its  hero, 
Gilbert  Rule,  the  founder  and  first  Principal  of  the 
University  of  Edinburgh  :  He  was  travelling  on 
the  dreary  road  across  the  Grampians,  called  the 
Cairn  o'  Mont,  on  which  stood  a  lone  desolate  inn. 
It  has  now  disappeared,  but  I  remember  it  in  its 
dreary  old  age,  standing  alone  on  the  moor,  with 
its  grim  gables  and  its  loupin'-on  stane, — just  the 


ROBERT  WODROW.  339 

sort  of  place  where,  in  the  romances,  the  horrified 
traveller  used  to  observe  a  trap-door  in  his  bed 
room  floor,  and  at  supper  picked  the  finger  of  a 
murdered  man  out  of  a  mutton  pie.  There  Rule 
arrived  late  at  night  seeking  accommodation,  but 
lie  could  get  none — the  house  was  crammed.  The 
only  alternative  was  to  make  a  bed  for  him  in 
an  empty  house  close  by ;  it  had  been  unoccupied 
for  thirty  years,  and  had  a  bad  repute.  He  had 
to  sleep  there  alone,  for  his  servant  would  not  go 
with  him.  Let  Wodrow  himself  tell  what  came 
to  pass. 

"  He  walked  some  time  in  the  room,  and  com 
mitted  himself  to  God's  protection,  and  went  to  bed. 
There  were  two  candles  left  on  the  table,  and  these 
he  put  out.  There  was  a  large  bright  fire  remain 
ing.  He  had  not  been  long  in  bed  till  the  room 
door  is  opened,  and  an  apparition,  in  shape  of  a 
country  tradesman,  came  in  and  opened  the  cur 
tains  without  speaking  a  word.  Mr.  Rule  was  re 
solved  to  do  nothing  till  it  should  speak  or  attack 
him,  but  lay  still  with  full  composure,  committing 
himself  to  the  Divine  protection  and  conduct.  The 
apparition  went  to  the  table,  lighted  the  two  can 
dles,  brought  them  to  the  bedside,  and  made  some 
steps  towards  the  door,  looking  still  to  the  bed,  as  if 
he  would  have  Mr.  Rule  rising  and  following.  Mr. 
Rule  still  lay  still,  till  he  should  see  his  way  further 
cleared.  Then  the  apparition,  who  the  whole  time 
spoke  none,  took  an  effectual  way  to  raise  the  doc 
tor.  He  carried  back  the  candles  to  the  table,  and 


340  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

went  to  the  fire,  and  with  the  tongues1  took  down 
the  kindled  coals,  and  laid  them  on  the  deal  cham 
ber  floor.  The  doctor  then  thought  it  time  to  rise 
and  put  on  his  clothes,  in  the  time  of  which  the 
spectre  laid  up  the  coals  again  in  the  chimney,  and 
going  to  the  table,  lifted  the  candles  and  went  to 
the  door,  opened  it,  still  looking  to  the  Principal  as 
he  would  have  him  following  the  candles,  which  he 
now,  thinking  there  was  something  extraordinary 
in  the  case,  after  looking  to  God  for  direction,  in 
clined  to  do.  The  apparition  went  down  some 

1  [This  will  seem  to  most  readers  a  typographical  error ;  to 
some,  merely  an  obsolete  spelling.  It  is  neither  :  it  represents  a 
common  provincial  pronunciation,  which  is  heard  even  among 
the  best-born  and  best-bred  people  in  England.  I  remember  a 
case  in  point  which  is  amusing  and  significant.  A  friend  of 
mine,  whose  manners  and  speech  are  those  of  cultivated  people 
in  this  country,  during  a  passage  along  the  Mediterranean  east 
ward,  some  years  ago,  was  thrown  much  in  company  with  a 
party  consisting  of  a  middle-aged  Englishman  of  high  official 
position,  his  young  wife  of  noble  family,  and  a  young  man  of 
like  social  standing ;  all  on  their  way  to  India.  The  lady  was 
bright  and  lively,  and  of  unexceptionable  manners,  though  some 
what  too  much  given  to  good-humored  sarcasm.  Finding  my 
friend,  to  her  surprise,  though  a  "  Yankee,"  yet  not  a  salvage 
man  in  a  full  black  dress-suit  with  satin  waistcoat  and  cravat, 
(which  we  all  know  is  the  usual  style  of  dress  here  in  the  morn 
ing  and  on  a  journey,)  she  graciously  accepted  his  fellow-travel 
ler  attentions,  and  soon,  with  frank  good-nature,  he  was  tacitly 
installed  of  their  party.  But  her  young  countryman  was  of 
course  her  favorite  and  her  firm  ally.  Especially  was  this  the 
case  in  a  series  of  good-humored  but  often  pungent  attacks  upon 
Yankees,  combined  with  traps  and  contrivances  to  catch  this 
particular  one  in  offences  against  English  speech  and  breeding. 
That  these  were  all  in  vain  did  not  of  course  diminish  the 
watchfulness  of  the  fair  censor.  Now  it  so  happened  that  the 


ROBERT  WODROW.  341 

steps  with  the  candles,  and  carried  them  into  a 
long  trance,  at  the  end  of  which  there  was  a  stair 
which  carried  down  to  a  low  room.  This  the  spec 
tre  went  down,  and  stooped,  and  set  down  the  lights 
on  the  lowest  step  of  the  stair,  and  straight  disap 
pears." 

The  learned  Principal,  whose  courage  and  cool 
ness  deserve  the  highest  commendation,  lighted  him 
self  hack  to  bed  with  the  candles,  and  took  the  re 
mainder  of  his  rest  undisturbed.  Being  a  man  of 
great  sagacity,  on  ruminating  over  his  adventure, 

young  gentleman  who  was  going  among  the  Sepoys  to  exchange 
his  liver  for  a  fortune,  although  of  a  high  county  family,  and 
Eton  and  Oxford  bred,  was  still  infected,  as  many  such  men  are, 
with  some  provincial  taint  upon  his  purity  of  speech,  —  quite 
unknown  to  himself.  At  breakfast  one  morning,  no  other  per 
sons  being  by,  he  asked  my  friend  for  the  "sugar  tongues." 
They  were  placed  at  his  hand,  with  the  mild  query,  "  Do  you 
say  tongues !"  "Tongues?  To  be  sure.  Why  not  ?  every 
body  says  tongues."  "  In  America  we  say  tongs."  There  was 

a  dispute,  a  bet ;  and  the  decision  was  left  to  Lady ,  whose 

English  both  parties  admitted  to  be  irreproachable.  They  tossed 
up  for  the  question.  It  fell  to  my  friend.  The  two  approached 
her  together,  and  he,  who  even  in  small  matters  is  the  soul  of 

honor  and  punctilio,  holding  up  the  forceps,  said,  "  Lady , 

don't  you  call  these  things  tongues  ? "  Her  eyes  flashed  merry 
malice,  and  laughing,  she  cried  out,  "Ah,  now  I  have  you.  Do 
you  Yankees  call  'em  tongues  1  Tawnys,  man,  (broadening  it 
out)  tawngs  is  English."  The  chapfallen  visage  of  her  own  true 
knight  showed  her  instantly  the  pit  into  which  she  had  flung  her 
self.  But  she  was  sensible  and  really  good-natured.  Her  eyes 
were  opened.  Gibing  at  Yankeeism  was  stopped ;  and  for  the 
rest  of  their  companionship  my  friend  was  treated  just  as  if  he 
had  not  had  the  misfortune  to  be  born  on  this  side  of  the  water, 
—  a  course  which  oddly  enough  proved  to  be  the  most  conven 
ient  and  agreeable  that  could  have  been  devised  for  all  par 
ties.  —  w. 


342  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

he  informed  the  sheriff  of  the  county  "  that  he  was 
much  of  the  mind  there  was  murder  in  the  case." 
The  stone  whereon  the  candles  were  placed  was 
raised,  and  there  "  the  plain  remains  of  a  human 
body  were  found,  and  bones,  to  the  conviction  of 
all."  It  was  supposed  to  be  an  old  affair,  how 
ever,  and  no  traces  could  be  got  of  the  murderer. 
Rule  undertook  the  functions  of  the  detective,  and 
pressed  into  the  service  the  influence  of  his  own 
profession.  He  preached  a  great  sermon  on  the 
occasion,  to  which  all  the  neighboring  people  were 
summoned  ;  and  behold,  "  in  the  time  of  his  sermon, 
an  old  man  near  eighty  years  was  awakened,  and 
fell  a-weeping,  and  before  all  the  whole  company 
acknowledged  that,  at  the  building  of  that  house, 
he  was  the  murderer." 

In  Wodrow's  note-book  the  devil  often  cuts  a 
humiliating  figure,  and  is  treated  with  a  deal  of 
rude  and  boisterous  jeering.  A  certain  "exercised 
Christian,"  probably  during  a  fit  of  indigestion, 
was  subjected  to  a  heavy  wrestling  with  doubts 
and  irreconcilable  difficulties,  which  raised  in  his 
mind  horrible  suggestions.  The  devil  took  occasion 
to  put  in  a  word  or  two  for  the  purpose  of  increas 
ing  the  confusion,  but  it  had  the  directly  opposite 
effect,  and  called  forth  the  remark  that,  "  on  the 
whole,  the  devil  is  a  great  fool,  and  outshoots  him 
self  oft  when  he  thinks  he  has  poor  believers  on 
the  haunch."  On  another  occasion  the  devil  per 
formed  a  function  of  a  very  unusual  kind,  one  would 
think.  He  is  known  to  quote  Scripture  for  his  pur- 


ROBERT  WODROW.  343 

poses,  but  who  ever  before  heard  of  his  writing  a 
sermon  —  and,  as  it  seems,  a  sound  and  orthodox 
one  ?  There  was,  it  appears,  a  youth  in  the  Uni 
versity  of  St.  Andrews,  preparing  to  undergo  his 
trials  as  a  licentiate,  who  had  good  reason  to  fear 
that  he  would  be  plucked.  He  found  he  could 
make  nothing  whatever  of  the  trial  sermon,  and 
was  wandering  about  by  lonely  ways,  seeking  in 
vain  for  inspiration.  At  last,  "  there  came  up  to 
him  a  stranger,  in  habit  like  a  minister,  in  black 
coat  and  band,  and  who  addressed  the  youth  very 
courteously."  He  was  mighty  inquisitive,  and  at 
length  wormed  out  the  secret  grief.  "  I  have  got 
a  text  from,  the  Presbytery.  I  cannot  for  my  life 
compose  a  discourse  on  it,  so  I  shall  be  affronted." 
The  stranger  replied  —  "  Sir,  I  am  a  minister  ;  let 
me  hear  the  text  ?  "  He  told  him.  "  Oh,  then,  I 
have  an  excellent  sermon  on  that  text  in  my  pocket, 
which  you  may  peruse  and  commit  to  your  mem 
ory.  I  engage,  after  you  have  delivered  it  before 
the  Presbytery,  you  will  be  greatly  approven  and 
applauded."  The  youth  received  it  thankfully ; 
but  one  good  turn  deserves  another.  The  stranger 
had  an  eccentric  fancy  that  he  should  have  a  writ 
ten  promise  from  the  youth  to  do  him  afterwards 
any  favor  in  his  power  ;  and  there  being  no  other 
liquid  conveniently  at  hand  for  the  signature  of  the 
document,  a  drop  of  the  young  man's  blood  wa&> 
drawn  for  the  purpose.  Note  now  what  followed.. 
"  Upon  the  Presbytery  day  the  youth  delivered) 
an  excellent  sermon  upon  the  text  appointed  him,. 


344  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

which  pleased  and  amazed  the  Presbytery  to  a 
degree ;  only  Mr.  Blair  smelt  out  something  in  it 
which  made  him  call  the  youth  aside  to  the  cor 
ner  of  the  church,  and  thus  he  began  with  him  : 
'  Sir,  you  have  delivered  a  nate  sermon,  every  way 
well  pointed.  The  matter  was  profound,  or  rather 
sublime ;  your  style  was  fine  and  your  method 
clear  ;  and,  no  doubt,  young  men  at  the  beginning 
must  make  use  of  helps,  which  I  doubt  not  vou 
have  done.'  So  beginning,  Blair,  who  was  a  man 
of  mighty  gifts  and  repute,  pressed  on  so  close  Arith 
repeated  questions  that  the  awful  truth  at  last  came 
out.  There  was  nothing  for  it  but  that  the  Pres 
bytery  must  engage  in  special  exercise  for  the  peni 
tent  youth.  They  prayed  each  in  succession  t3  no 
purpose,  till  it  came  to  Blair's  turn.  "  In  time  of 
his  prayer  there  came  a  violent  rushing  of  wind  upon 
the  church  —  so  great  that  they  thought  the  church 
should  have  fallen  down  about  their  ears  —  and 
with  that  the  youth's  paper  and  covenant  drops 
down  from  the  roof  of  the  church  among  the  min 
isters." 

A  large  proportion  of  Wodrow's  special  provi 
dences  are  performed  for  the  benefit  of  the  clergy, 
either  to  provide  them  with  certain  worldly  neces 
saries  of  which  they  may  happen  to  be  in  want,  or 
to  give  effect  to  their  pious  indignation,  or,  as  some 
might  be  tempted  to  call  it,  their  vindictive  spite, 
against  those  who  revile  them.  Perhaps  an  inter 
dicted  pastor,  wandering  over  the  desolate  moors 
where  he  and  his  hunted  flock  seek  refuge,  is  sorely 


ROBERT   WODROW.  345 

impeded  by  some  small  want  of  the  flesh,  and  gives 
expression  to  his  wishes  concerning  it ;  when  forth 
with  he  is  miraculously  supplied  with  a  shoulder  of 
mutton  or  a  pair  of  trousers,  according  to  the  nature 
of  his  necessities.  He  encounters  ridicule  or  per 
sonal  insult,  and  instantly  the  blasphemer  is  struck 
dead,  or  idiotic,  or  dumb,  after  the  example  of  those 
who  mocked  Elisha's  bald  head ;  and  Wodrow  gen 
erally  winds  up  these  judgments  with  an  appropriate 
admonitory  text,  as,  for  instance,  "  Touch  not  His 
anointed,  and  do  His  prophets  no  harm."  As  the 
persons  for  whom  these  special  miracles  are  per 
formed  generally  happen  to  be  sorely  beset  by 
worldly  privations  and  dangers,  which  are  at  their 
climax  at  the  very  time  when  they  are  able  to  call 
in  supernatural  intervention,  a  logician  might  be 
inclined  to  ask  why,  if  the  operations,  and,  as  it 
were,  the  very  motives,  of  the  Deity  are  examined 
in  respect  of  those  events  which  are  propitious  to 
His  favorite,  they  should  not  also  be  examined  with 
the  same  critical  pertinacity  as  to  the  greatly  pre 
dominating  collection  of  events  which  are  decidedly 
unpropitious  to  him,  so  as  to  bring  out  the  reason 
why  the  simpler  course  of  saving  him  from  all  hard 
ships  and  persecution  had  not  been  followed,  instead 
of  the  circuitous  plan  of  launching  heavy  calamities 
against  him,  and  then  issuing  special  miraculous 
powers  to  save  him  from  a  small  portion  of  these 
calamities.  But  such  logic  would  probably  be  un- 
profitably  bestowed,  and  it  is  wiser  to  take  the  nar 
ratives  as  they  stand  and  make  the  best  use  of  them. 


346  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

Whoever  looks  at  them  with  a  cold  scientific  eye 
will  at  once  be  struck  by  the  close  analogy  of  Wod- 
row's  vaticinations  and  miracles  to  those  of  other 
times  and  places,  and  especially  to  those  credited  to 
the  saints  of  the  early  Catholic  Church,  to  which 
many  of  them,  indeed,  bear  a  wonderfully  exact 
resemblance. 


ffilje  (£ctrlg  Jfortljmt  Saints. 

ARRIED  on  by  the  power  of  associa 
tion,  we  are  thus  brought  to  the  door  of 
an  exceedingly  interesting  department 
of  book-club  literature,  —  the  restora 
tion  of  the  true  text  of  the  early  lives  of  the  saints 
—  a  species  of  literature  now  recognized  and  sepa 
rated  from  others  by  the  title  of  Hagiology.  Every 
body  knows,  or  ought  to  know,  that  the  great  libra 
ry  of  this  kind  of  literature,  published  by  the  Bol- 
landists,  begins  with  the  beginning  of  the  year,  and 
gives  the  life  of  each  saint  successively  according  to 
his  day  in  the  calendar.  Ignorance  is  more  excusable 
on  the  question  what  constitutes  saintship,  and,  sup 
posing  you  to  have  found  your  saint,  on  the  criterion 
by  which  the  day  of  his  festival  should  be  adjusted 
in  the  calendar.  Technically,  to  make  a  saint,  there 
should  be  an  act  of  pontifical  jurisdiction,  all  the 
more  solemn  than  any  secular  judicial  act  as  the 
interests  affected  are  more  momentous ;  but  only  a 


THE  EARLY  NORTHERN  SAINTS.          347 

small  number  of  the  saints  stand  on  record  in  the 
proceedings  of  the  Vatican.  In  fact,  the  great  body 
of  them  were  in  the  enjoyment  of  their  honors  hun 
dreds  of  years  before  the  certifying  process  was 
adopted,  and  to  investigate  all  their  credentials  was 
far  too  weighty  a  task  to  be  attempted.  It  is  taken 
for  granted  that  they  have  been  canonized,  and  if  it 
be  difficult  to  prove  that  they  have  gone  through 
this  ceremony,  they  hold  their  ground  through  the 
still  greater  difficulty  of  proving  that  they  have  not. 
Some  of  those  whose  sanctity  is  established  by  this 
kind  of  acclamation  are  so  illustrious  that  it  would 
be  ludicrous  to  suppose  even  the  Vatican  capable  of 
adding  to  their  eminence  —  more  so,  to  imagine  any 
process  by  which  they  could  be  unsanctified  —  such 
are  St.  Patrick,  St.  George,  and  St.  David.  But 
there  is  a  vast  crowd  of  village  or  parochial  saints 
firmly  established  within  their  own  narrow  circles, 
but  as  unknown  at  the  court  of  Rome  as  any  ob 
scure  curate  working  in  some  distant  valley,  or 
among  the  poor  of  some  great  city.  In  such  a 
crowd  there  will  naturally  be  questionable  person 
ages.  St.  Valentine,  St.  Fiacre,  St.  Boniface,  St. 
Lupus,  St.  Maccesso,  St.  Bobbio,  and  St.  Jingo, 
have  names  not  endowed  with  a  very  sanctimonious 
sound,  but  they  are  well-established  respectable 
saints.  Even  Alban  Butler,  however,  has  hard 
work  in  giving  credit  to  St.  Longinus,  St.  Quirinus, 
St.  Mercurius,  St.  Hermes,  St.  Virgil,  St.  Plutarch, 
and  St.  Bacchus.  It  is  the  occurrence  of  such 
names  that  makes  Moreri  speak  of  the  Bollandist 


348  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

selection  as  rather  loose,  since  it  contains  "  vies  des 
saintes  bonnes,  mddiocres,  mauvaises,  vrayes,  dou- 
teuses,  et  fausses." 

The  saint's  festival-day  is  generally  the  anniver 
sary  of  his  death,  or  "  deposition,"  as  it  is  techni 
cally  termed ;  but  this  is  by  no  means  an  absolute 
rule.  Few  compilers  deserve  more  sympathy  than 
those  who  try  to  adjust  saints'  days  by  rule  and 
chronology,  since  not  only  does  one  saint  differ  from 
another  in  the  way  in  which  his  feast  is  established, 
but  for  the  same  saint  there  are  different  days  in 
different  countries,  and  even  in  different  ecclesias 
tical  districts  —  the  diocese  of  Paris  having,  for 
instance,  some  special  saints'  days  of  its  own,  which 
differ  from  the  practice  throughout  the  rest  of  Cath 
olic  Christendom.  Some  saints,  too,  have  been 
shifted  about  from  day  to  day  by  authority.  Queen 
Margaret  of  Scotland,  the  wife  of  Malcolm,  whose 
real  source  of  influence  was  that  she  represented 
the  old  Saxon  line  of  England,  had  two  great  days, 
—  that  of  her  deposition  on  July  the  8th,  and  that 
of  her  translation  on  July  the  19th ;  but,  by  a  papal 
ordinance  immediately  after  the  Revolution,  her  fes 
tival  was  established  upon  the  10th  of  June.  This 
was  rather  a  remarkable  day  in  Britain,  being  that 
on  which  the  poor  infant  son  of  the  last  of  the 
Jameses,  afterwards  known  in  Parliamentary  lan 
guage  as  the  Pretender,  was  born.  The  adjustment 
of  Queen  Margaret's  day  to  that  event  was  a  stroke 
of  policy  for  the  purpose  of  rendering  the  poor  child 
respectable,  and  removing  all  doubts  about  warm- 


THE  EARLY  NORTHERN  SAINTS.          349 

ing -pans  and  other  disagreeables  ;  but  it  is  not 
known  that  the  measure  exercised  the  slightest 
influence  on  the  British  Parliament. 

Bollandus,  who  was  the  first  seriously  to  lay  his 
hand  to  the  great  work  called  after  him,  was  a  Bel 
gian  Jesuit.  He  had  got  through  January  and  Feb 
ruary  in  five  folio  volumes,  when  he  died  in  1658. 
Under  the  auspices  of  his  successor,  Daniel  Pape- 
broch,  March  appeared  in  1668  and  April  in  1675, 
each  in  three  volumes.  So  the  great  work  crept 
on  day  by  day  and  year  by  year,  absorbing  the 
whole  lives  of  many  devoted  laborers,  conspicuous 
among  whom  are  the  unmelodious  names  of  Peter 
Bosch,  John  Stilting,  Constantine  Suyskhen,  Urban 
Sticken,  Cornelius  Bye,  James  Bue,  and  Ignacius 
Hubens.  In  1762,  a  hundred  and  four  years  after 
January,  September  was  completed.  It  filled  eight 
volumes,  for  the  work  accumulated  like  a  snowball 
as  it  rolled,  each  month  being  larger  than  its  prede 
cessor.  Here  the  ordinary  copies  stop  in  forty-seven 
volumes,  for  the  evil  days  of  the  Jesuits  were  com 
ing  on,  and  the  new  literary  oligarchy,  where  Vol 
taire,  Montesquieu,  and  D'Alembert  held  sway,  had 
not  been  propitious  to  hagiology.  A  part  of  Octo 
ber  was  accomplished  under  the  auspices  of  Maria 
Theresa,  the  Empress  Queen,  but  for  some  reason 
or  other  it  came  within  the  category  of  rare  books, 
and  was  not  to  be  easily  obtained  until  it  was  lately 
reprinted. 

Whatever  effect  such  a  phenomenon  may  have 
on  some  denominations  of  the  religious  world,  it  can 


350  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

afford  nothing  but  pure  satisfaction  to  all  historical 
investigators  to  know  that  this  great  work  has  been 
resumed  in  this  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
I  have  before  me  the  ninth  volume  for  October, 
embracing  the  twentieth  and  twenty-first  days  of 
that  month,  and  containing  about  as  much  matter 
as  the  five  volumes  of  Macaulay's  History.  On  the 
21st  of  October  there  is,  to  be  sure,  a  very  heavy 
job  to  be  got  through  in  St.  Ursula  and  her  eleven 
thousand  virgins,  whose  bones  may  be  seen  in  musty 
presses  in  the  Church  of  the  Ursulines  in  Cologne  ; 
but  still  as  it  moves  forward,  it  is  evident  that  the 
mighty  work  continues  to  enlarge  its  proportions. 
The  winter  is  coming  on  too,  a  period  crowded 
with  the  memorials  of  departed  saints,  as  being 
unpropitious  to  men  of  highly  ascetic  habits,  so 
that  those  who  have  undertaken  the  completion 
of  the  Bollandist  enterprise  have  their  work  be 
fore  them. 

There  is  a  marvellous  uniformity  in  all  the  ar 
rangements  of  this  array  of  volumes  which  have 
thus  appeared  at  intervals  throughout  two  centu 
ries.  They  dealt  with  matter  too  sublimely  sepa 
rated  from  the  temporal  doings  of  men  to  be  affected 
by  political  events,  yet  could  they  not  entirely  es 
cape  some  slight  touches  from  the  convulsions  that 
had  recast  the  whole  order  and  conditions  of  soci 
ety.  When  October  was  begun,  Belgium,  where 
the  work  is  published,  was  attached  to  the  Austrian 
Empire,  and  the  French  Revolution  had  not  yet 
come.  The  Jesuits,  though  not  favorites  among 


THE  EARLY  NORTHERN  SAINTS.          351 

monarchs,  profess  a  decorous  loyalty,  and  the  earlier 
volumes  of  the  month  have  portraits  of  the  Empress 
Queen,  and  others  of  the  Imperial  family,  in  the 
most  elaborate  court  costume  of  the  days  before  the 
Revolution ;  while  the  later  volumes,  still  loyal,  are 
illustrated  by  the  family  circle  of  the  Protestant 
king  of  constitutional  Belgium,  whose  good-hu 
mored  face  and  plain  broadcloth  coat  are  those 
doubtless  of  the  right  man,  though  one  cannot  help 
imagining  that  he  feels  himself  somehow  in  the 
wrong  place. 

The  crowds  of  saints  who  come  sometimes  swarm 
ing  in  on  a  single  day  to  these  teeming  volumes,  give 
one  an  almost  oppressive  notion  of  the  quantity  of 
goodness  that  must  have  after  all  existed  in  this 
wicked  world.  The  labors  of  the  Bollandists,  not 
only  in  searching  through  all  available  literature, 
but  in  a  special  correspondence  established  with 
their  Jesuit  brethren  throughout  the  world,  are  ab 
solutely  astounding.  Their  conscientious  minute 
ness  is  wonderful  ;  and  many  a  one  who  thinks  he 
is  master  of  the  ecclesiastical  lore  of  his  own  parish, 
which  he  has  made  his  specialty,  has  been  petrified 
to  find  what  he  thought  his  discoveries  all  laid 
down  with  careful  precision  as  matters  of  ordinary 
knowledge  in  some  corner  of  these  mighty  volumes. 
The  Bollandists  obtained  their  information  from  the 
spot,  and  it  is  on  the  spot  that  this  kind  of  litera 
ture  must  be  worked  out.  A  thoroughly  accom 
plished  antiquary,  working  within  a  limited  district, 
will  thus  bring  forth  more  full  and  satisfactory  re- 


352  BOOK-CLUB   LITERATURE. 

suits,  so  far  as  they  go,  than  even  the  Bollandists 
have  achieved,  and  hence  the  great  value  of  the 
services  of  the  book  clubs  to  hagiology. 

The  writer  of  the  letters  bearing  the  signature 
"Veritas"  in  all  the  newspapers,  would,  of  course, 
specially  object  to  the  resuscitation  of  this  class  of 
literature,  because  it  is  full  of  fabulous  accounts  of 
miracles  and  other  supernatural  events  which  can 
only  minister  to  credulity  and  superstition.  But 
even  in  the  extent  and  character  of  this  very  ele 
ment  there  is  a  great  significance.  The  size  of  a 
current  falsehood  is  the  measure  of  the  size  of  the 
human  belief  that  has  swallowed  it,  and  is  a  com 
ponent  part  of  the  history  of  man. 

The  best  critical  writers  on  ancient  history  have 
agreed  not  to  throw  away  the  cosmogony  and  the 
hierology  of  Greece.  It  is  part  of  Grecian  history 
that  the  creed  of  the  people  was  filled  with  a  love 
of  embodied  fancies,  so  graceful  and  luxuriant.  No 
less  are  the  revel  rout  of  Valhalla  part  of  the  virtual 
history  of  the  Scandinavian  tribes.  But  the  lives 
of  our  saints,  independently  altogether  of  the  mo 
mentous  change  in  human  affairs  and  prospects 
which  they  ushered  in,  have  a  substantial  hold  on 
history?  of  which  neither  the  classical  nor  the  north 
ern  hierology  can  boast.  Poseidon  and  Aphrodite, 
Odin  and  Freya,  vanish  into  the  indefinite  and  un- 
discoverable  at  the  approach  of  historical  criticism. 
But  separately  altogether  from  their  miracles,  Cuth- 
bert  and  Ninian,  Columba  and  Kentigern,  had  act 
ual  existences.  We  know  when  they  lived  and 


THE  EARLY  NORTHERN  SAINTS.          353 

when  they  died.  The  closer  that  historical  criticism 
dogs  their  steps,  the  clearer  it  sees  them,  and  the 
more  it  knows  about  their  actual  lives  and  ways. 
Even  if  they  were  not  the  missionaries  who  intro 
duced  Christianity  among  us,  —  as  men  who,  in  the 
old  days  before  Britain  became  populous  and  afflu 
ent  in  the  fruits  of  advanced  civilization,  trod  the 
soil  that  we  tread,  it  would  be  interesting  to  know 
about  them  —  about  the  habitations  they  lodged  in, 
the  garments  they  wore,  the  food  they  ate,  the  lan 
guage  they  spoke,  their  method  of  social  intercourse 
among  each  other,  and  the  sort  of  government  un 
der  which  they  lived. 

That  by  investigation  and  critical  inquiry  we  can 
know  more  of  these  things  than  our  ancestors  of 
centuries  past  could  know,  is  still  a  notion  compar 
atively  new  which  has  not  been  popularly  realized. 
The  classic  literature  in  which  our  early  training 
lies  has  nothing  in  it  to  show  us  the  power  of  his 
torical  inquiry,  and  much  to  make  us  slight  it.  The 
Romans,  instead  of  improving  on  the  Greeks,  fell 
in  this  respect  behind  them.  Father  Herodotus, 
credulous  as  he  was,  was  a  better  antiquary  than 
any  who  wrote  in  Latin  before  the  revival  of  letters. 
Occupied  entirely  with  the  glory  of  their  conquests, 
and  blind  to  the  future  which  their  selfish  tyranny 
was  preparing  for  them,  the  Romans  were  equally 
thoughtless  of  the  past,  unless  it  were  exaggerated 
and  falsified  into  a  narrative  to  aggrandize  their  own 
glory.  Their  authors  abdicated  the  duty  of  leaving 
to  the  world  the  true  narrative  of  the  early  strug- 

23 


354  BOOK-CLUB   LITERATURE. 

gles  and  achievements  out  of  which  the  Republic 
and  the  Empire  arose.  It  is  easy  to  be  sceptical  at 
any  time.  We  can  cut  away  Romulus  and  Remus 
from  accepted  history  now,  hundreds  of  years  after 
the  Empire  has  ceased  to  govern  or  exist.  But  the 
golden  opportunity  for  sifting  the  genuine  out  of  the 
fabulous  has  long  passed  away.  It  is  seldom  possi 
ble  to  construct  the  infant  histories  of  departed 
nationalities.  The  difference  between  the  facilities 
which  a  nation  has  for  finding  out  its  own  early 
history,  and  those  which  strangers  have  for  con 
structing  it  when  the  nationality  has  allowed  its 
death-bed  to  pass  over  without  the  performance  of 
that  patriotic  task,  is  nearly  as  great  as  a  man's  own 
facilities  for  writing  the  history  of  his  youth,  and 
those  of  the  biographer  who  makes  inquiries  about 
him  after  he  is  buried. 

We  are  becoming  wiser  than  the  Romans  in  this 
as  in  other  matters,  and  are  constructing  the  infant 
histories  of  the  various  European  nations,  out  of  the 
materials  which  each  possesses.  The  biographies 
of  those  saints  or  missionaries  who  first  diffused  the 
light  of  the  Gospel  among  the  various  communities 
of  the  Christian  north,  form  a  very  large  element 
in  these  materials  ;  and  no  wonder,  when  we  re 
member  that  the  Church  possessed  all  the  literature 
of  the  age,  such  as  it  was.  In  applying,  however, 
to  the  British  Empire,  this  new  source  of  historical 
information,  there  arose  the  difficulty  that  it  was 
chiefly  supplied  from  Ireland.  If  all  hagiology 
were  under  a  general  suspicion  of  the  fabulous, 


THE  EARLY  NORTHERN  SAINTS.          355 

Irish  history  was  known  to  be  a  luxuriant  preserve 
of  fables,  and  these  causes  of  dubiety  being  multi 
plied  by  each  other  in  the  mind,  it  seemed  almost 
impossible  to  obtain  a  hearing  for  the  new  voice. 
In  fact,  during  a  long  period  the  three  nations  were 
engaged  in  a  competition  which  should  carry  its 
history  through  the  longest  track  of  fictitious  glory,, 
and  this  was  a  kind  of  work  in  which  Ireland  beat 
her  neighbors  entirely.  Hence,  when  all  were- 
pressing  pretty  close  upon  the  Deluge,  Ireland  took 
the  leap  at  once  and  cleared  that  gulf.  As  a  fairish 
record  of  these  successful  efforts,  I  would  recom 
mend  to  the  reader's  notice  a  very  well-conditioned 
and  truly  learned-looking  folio  volume,  called  "The 
General  History  of  Ireland,  collected  by  the  learned 
Jeffrey  Keating,  D.  D.,  faithfully  translated  from 
the  original  Irish  Language,  with  many  curious 
Amendments  taken  from  the  Psalters  of  Tara  and 
Cashel,  with  other  authentic  Records,  by  Dermod 
O'Connor,  Antiquary  to  the  Kingdom  of  Ireland." 
Opposite  to  the  title-page  is  a  full-length  portrait  of 
Brian  Boroomh,  whose  fame  has  been  increased  of 
late  years  by  the  achievements  of  his  descendant  in 
the  cabbage-garden.  The  monarch  is  in  full  bur 
nished  plate  armor,  with  scarf  and  surcoat  —  all 
three  centuries  at  least  later  in  fashion  than  the  era 
attributed  to  him.  But  that  is  a  trifle.  It  would 
involve  much  hard  and  useless  work  to  make  war 
on  the  anachronisms  of  historical  portraits,  and  we 
are  not  to  judge  of  historical  works  by  their  en 
graved  decorations.  Here,  however,  the  picture 


356  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

is  sober  truth  itself  to  what  the  inquiring  reader 
finds  in  the  typography.  After  the  descriptive 
geographical  introduction  common  in  old  histories, 
the  real  commencement  comes  upon  us  in  this 
form  :  — 

"  Of  the  first  invasion  of  Ireland  before  the 
Flood  !  "  "  Various,"  the  author  tells  us,  "  are 
the  opinions  concerning  the  first  mortal  that  set  a 
foot  upon  this  island.  We  are  told  by  some  that 
three  of  the  daughters  of  Cain  arrived  here,  sev 
eral  hundred  years  before  the  Deluge.  The  White 
Book,  which  in  the  Irish  is  called  Leabhar  Dhroma 
Sneachta,  informs  us  that  the  oldest  of  these  daugh 
ters  was  called  Banba,  and  gave  a  name  to  the 
whole  kingdom.  After  these,  we  are  told  that  three 
men  and  fifty  women  arrived  in  the  island  ;  one  of 
them  was  called  Ladhra,  from  whom  wras  derived 
the  name  of  Ardladhan.  These  people  lived  forty 
years  in  the  country,  and  at  last  they  all  died  of  a 
certain  distemper  in  a  week's  time.  From  their 
death,  it  is  said  that  the  island  was  uninhabited  for 
the  space  of  an  hundred  years,  till  the  world  was 
drowned.  We  are  told  that  the  first  who  set  foot 
upon  the  island  were  three  fishermen  that  were 
driven  thither  by  a  storm  from  the  coast  of  Spain. 
They  were  pleased  with  the  discovery  they  had 
made,  and  resolved  to  settle  in  the  country  ;  but 
they  agreed  first  to  go  back  for  their  wives,  and  in 
their  return  were  unfortunately  drowned  by  the 
waters  of  the  Deluge  at  a  place  called  Tuath  Inbhir. 
The  names  of  these  three  fishermen  were  Capa, 


THE  EARLY  NORTHERN  SAINTS.          357 

Laighne,  and  Luasat.  Others,  again,  are  of  opinion 
that  Ceasar,  the  daughter  of  Bith,  was  the  first  that 
came  into  the  island  before  the  Deluge.  .  .  .  When 
Noah  was  building  the  ark  to  preserve  himself  and 
his  family  from  the  Deluge,  Bith,  the  father  of 
Ceasar,  sent  to  desire  an  apartment  for  him  and  his 
daughter,  to  save  them  from  the  approaching  dan 
ger.  Noah,  having  no  authority  from  Heaven  to 
receive  them  into  the  ark,  denied  his  request.  Upon 
this  repulse,  Bith  Fiontan,  the  husband  of  Ceasar, 
and  Ladhra  her  brother,  consulted  among  them 
selves  what  measures  they  should  take  in  this  ex 
tremity." 

The  result  was,  that,  like  the  Laird  of  Macnab, 
they  "  built  a  boat  o'  their  ain,"  but  on  a  much 
larger  scale,  being  a  fair  match  with  the  ark  itself. 
But  justice  must  be  done  to  every  one.  The 
learned  Dr.  Keating  does  not  give  us  all  this  as 
veritable  history ;  on  the  contrary,  being  of  a  scep 
tical  turn  of  mind,  he  has  courage  enough  to  stem 
the  national  prejudice,  and  throw  doubt  on  the  nar 
rative.  He  even  rises  up  into  something  like  elo 
quent  scorn  when  he  discusses  the  manner  in  which 
some  antediluvian  annals  were  said  to  be  preserved. 
Thus  :  — 

"  As  for  such  of  them  who  say  that  Fiontan  was 
drowned  in  the  Flood,  and  afterwards  came  to  life, 
and  lived  to  publish  the  antediluvian  history  of  the 
island  —  what  can  they  propose  by  such  chimerical 
relations,  but  to  amuse  the  ignorant  with  strange- 
and  romantic  tales,  to  corrupt  and  perplex  the  orig- 


358  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

inal  annals,  and  to  raise  a  jealousy  that  no  manner 
of  credit  is  to  be  given  to  the  true  and  authentic 
chronicles  of  that  kingdom  ?  " 

I  shall  quote  no  more  until  after  the  doctor,  hav 
ing  exhausted  his  sceptical  ingenuity  about  the  ante 
diluvian  stories,  finds  himself  again  on  firm  ground, 
prepared  to  afford  his  readers,  without  any  critical 
misgivings,  "  an  account  of  the  first  inhabitants  of 
Ireland  after  the  Flood."     He  now  tells  us  with 
simple  and  dignified  brevity  that  "  the  kingdom  of 
Ireland  lay  waste  and  uninhabited  for  the  space  of 
three  hundred  years  after  the  Deluge,  till  Parthola- 
nus,  son  of  Seara,  son  of  Sru,  son  of  Easru,  son  of 
Framant,  son  of  Faathochda,  son  of  Magog,  son  of 
Japhet,  son  of  Noah,  arrived  there  with  his  people." 
From  such  a  patriarchal  nomenclature  the  reader  of 
Keating  is  suddenly  introduced  to  a  story  of  domes 
tic  scandal,  in  which  a  "  footman  "  and  a  "  favorite 
grevhound"  make  their  frequent  appearance.     Then 
follow  many  great  epochs  —  the  arrival  of  the  Fir- 
bolgs,  the  dynasty  of  the  Tuatha  de  Danans,  with 
revolutions  and  battles  countless,  before  we  come  to 
the  commencement  of  a  settled  dynasty  of  kings,  of 
whom  more  than  ninety  reigned  before  the  Chris 
tian  era.     It  is,  after  all,  more  sad  than  ridiculous 
to   remember   that  within   the   present   generation 
many  historians   believed  not  only   what   Keating 
thus  tells  as  truth,  but  also  what  he  ventured  to 
doubt ;   and  if  the  English    antiquaries,  according 
to  their  wont,  called  for  records,  —  did  these  not 
exist  abundantly,  if  they  could  be  got  at,  in  those 


THE  EARLY  NORTHERN  SAINTS.          359 

authentic  genealogies,  which  were  from  time  to 
time  adjusted  and  collated  with  so  much  skill  and 
scrupulous  accuracy  by  the  official  antiquaries 
who  met  in  the  Hall  of  Tara  ?  The  reader  un 
acquainted  with  this  out-of-the-way  and  rather 
weedy  corner  of  literature,  may  think  this  vague 
exaggeration,  and  I  shall  finish  it  by  quoting  the 
latest  printed,  so  far  as  I  know,  of  the  numerous 
solemn  and  methodical  statements  about  the  man 
ner  in  which  the  records  of  these  very  distant  mat 
ters  were  authenticated. 

"  When  the  said  princes  got  the  kingdom  into 
their  hands,  they  assigned  large  territories  to  their 
antiquaries  and  their  posterity  to  preserve  their 
pedigree,  exploits,  actions,  &c. ;  and  so  very  strict 
they  were  on  this  point,  that  they  established  a 
triennial  convention  at  Tara,  where  the  chief  kings 
of  Ireland  dwelt,  where  all  the  antiquaries  of  the 
nation  met  every  third  year  to  have  their  chron 
icles  and  antiquities  examined  before  the  king  of 
Ireland,  the  four  provincial  kings,  the  king's  anti 
quary-royal,  &c. ;  the  least  forgery  in  the  antiquary 
was  punished  with  death,  and  loss  of  estate  to  his  pos 
terity  forever  —  so  very  exact  they  were  in  preserv 
ing  their  venerable  monuments,  and  leaving  them 
to  posterity  truly  and  candidly  ;  so  that  even  at  this 
day  (though  our  nation  lost  estate  and  all  almost) 
there  is  not  an  ancient  name  of  Ireland,  of  the 
blood-royal  thereof  descended,  but  we  can  bring, 
from  father  to  father,  from  the  present  man  in 
being  to  Adam  —  and  I,  Thaddy  O'Roddy,  who 


360  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

wrote  this,  have  written  all  the  families  of  the 
Milesian  race  from  this  present  age  to  Adam."  l 

To  all  this  preposterous,  and  now  scarcely  cred 
ible  extravagance  of  fiction,  there  attaches  a  mel 
ancholy  political  moral.  Poor  Ireland,  trodden  by 
a  dominant  party  whose  hand  was  strengthened  by 
her  potent  neighbor,  sought  relief  from  the  gloom 
of  the  present,  by  looking  far  back  into  the  fabu 
lous  glories  of  the  past  —  and  it  seemed  the  last 
drop  in  her  cup  of  bitterness  when  this  pleasant 
vista  was  also  to  be  closed  by  the  hard  utilitarian 
hand  of  the  unsympathizing  Saxon. 

After  "  this  sort  of  thing  "  it  was  naturally  diffi 
cult  to  get  sensible  men  to  listen  to  proposals  for 
opening  valuable  new  sources  of  early  history  in 
Ireland.  In  fact,  down  to  the  time  when  Moore 
wrote  his  History  in  1835,  no  one  could  venture  to 
look  another  in  the  face  when  speaking  of  the  early 
Irish  annals,  and  the  consequence  was  that  that  ac 
complished  author  wilfully  shut  his  eyes  to  the  rich 
supply  of  historical  materials  in  which  he  might 
have  worked  to  brilliant  effect. 

Yet,  upon  the  general  face  of  history,  it  must  on 
examination  have  been  fairly  seen  that  Ireland  is 
the  natural  place  where  a  great  proportion  of  what 
ever  is  to  be  known  about  the  primitive  Church  in 
the  British  Islands  was  to  be  found.  Indeed,  in  the 
history  of  Christianity,  not  the  least  wonderful  chap 
ter  contains  the  episode  of  the  repose  in  the  West, 
where  a  portion  of  the  Church,  having  settled  down, 
1  Miscel.  of  Irish  Arch.  Soc.,  i.  120. 


THE  EARLY  NORTHERN  SAINTS.         361 

grew  up  in  calm  obscurity,  protected  by  distance 
from  the  desolating  contest  which  was  breaking  up 
the  Empire  of  the  world,  and  raged  more  or  less 
wherever  the  Roman  sway  had  penetrated.  Of  the 
southern  Britons  it  could  no  longer  be  said,  as  in 
the  days  of  Augustus,  that  they  were  cut  off  from 
all  the  world.  England  was  an  integral  part  of  the 
Empire,  where  if  the  proconsul  or  legionary  com 
mander  had  not  the  hot  sun  and  blue  sky  of  Italy, 
there  were  partial  compensations  in  the  bracing  air 
which  renewed  his  wasted  strength,  the  new  and 
peculiar  luxuries  in  the  shape  of  shell-fish  and  wild 
fowl  that  enriched  his  table,  and  the  facilities  which 
his  insular  authority  afforded  him  for  strengthening 
his  political  position,  and  plotting  for  a  fragment  of 
the  disintegrating  Empire.  An  admiral  of  the  Ro 
man  fleet  had  at  one  time  established  his  power  in 
Britain,  where  he  set  up  as  Ca3sar,  and  sought  to 
create  a  new  imperial  centre.  Thus  the  southern 
part  of  Britain  was  a  province  of  the  true  Roman 
Empire  awaiting  the  coming  of  the  wild  hordes  who 
were  gathering  for  the  general  overthrow,  and  was 
not  the  place  where  either  the  Christian  Church  or 
Italian  civilization  could  find  permanent  refuge. 
The  destined  destroyer  was  indeed  close  at  hand. 
Though  the  Romans  had  their  walls,  their  roads, 
their  forts,  and  even  a  few  villas  in  Scotland,  yet 
one  going  northward  at  that  time  through  the  terri 
tories  of  the  Gadeni  and  the  Otadeni,  would  observe 
the  Romanized  character  of  the  country  gradually 
decreasing,  until  he  found  himself  among  those 


362  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

rough  independent  northern  trihes  who,  under  the 
name  of  Picts  and  Scots,  drove  the  Romanized 
Britons  into  the  sea,  and  did  for  the  insular  portion 
of  the  Empire  what  the  hordes  who  were  called 
Goths,  Franks,  and  Alemanni,  were  doing  in  the 
Roman  provinces  of  the  Continent. 

Behind  the  scene  of  this  destructive  contest, 
Christianity,  having  been  planted,  flourished  in 
peaceful  poverty.  It  grew  here  and  there  over 
Ireland,  and  in  a  small  portion  of  the  remote  part 
of  Scotland  ;  and  the  distance  from  the  scene  of 
warfare  necessary  for  its  safety  is  shown  by  the 
fate  of  St.  Ninian's  little  church  in  the  Mull  of 
Galloway.  It  was  too  near  the  field  of  strife  to 
live.  The  isolation  in  which  the  western  Christians 
thus  arose,  was  productive  of  ecclesiastical  condi 
tions  very  remarkable  in  themselves,  but  perfectly 
natural  as  the  effects  of  their  peculiar  causes.  The 
admirable  organization  for  carrying  out  the  civil 
government  of  the  Roman  empire,  was  a  ready-made 
hierarchy  for  carrying  out  the  ecclesiastical  suprem 
acy  of  the  Bishop  of  Rome.  It  was  far  from  the 
object  of  those  who  seized  on  the  power  of  the 
Cassars  to  abolish  that  power.  On  the  contrary, 
they  desired  to  work  it  on  their  own  account,  and 
thus  the  machinery  of  the  Empire  lived,  exercising 
more  or  less  vitality  and  power,  down  to  the  first 
French  Revolution. 

No  part  of  its  civil  organization,  however,  re 
tained  the  comprehensive  vitality  which  the  learn 
ing  and  subtlety  of  the  priesthood  enabled  them  to 


THE  EARLY  NORTHERN  SAINTS.          363 

preserve,  or  rather  restore,  to  its  spiritual  branch. 
Hence,  wherever  the  conquerors  of  Rome  held 
sway,  there  the  priests  of  Rome  obtained  a  sway 
also.  But  the  one  little  fragment  of  the  primitive 
Church,  which  had  been  so  curiously  cut  off  during 
the  great  contest,  was  beyond  the  sway  of  the  con 
querors  of  Rome,  as  it  had  been  beyond  the  sway 
of  the  Emperors  themselves.  Hence,  while  the 
Church,  as  united  to  Rome,  grew  up  in  one  great 
uniform  hierarchy,  the  small,  isolated  Church  in  the 
West  grew  up  with  different  usages  and  character 
istics  ;  and  when  afterwards  those  who  followed 
them  were  charged  with  schism,  they  asserted  that 
they  had  their  canons  and  usages  directly  from  the 
apostles,  from  whom  they  had  obtained  the  Gospel 
and  the  regulations  of  the  Church  pure  and  unde- 
filed.  Thus  arose  the  renowned  contest  between 
the  early  Scottish  Church  and  the  rest  of  Christen 
dom  about  the  proper  period  of  observing  Easter, 
and  about  the  form  of  the  tonsure.  Hence,  too, 
arose  the  debates  about  the  peculiar  discipline  of 
the  communities  called  Culdees,  who,  having  to 
frame  their  own  system  of  church  government  for 
themselves,  humble,  poor,  and  isolated  as  they 
were,  constructed  it  after  a  different  fashion  from 
the  potent  hierarchy  of  Rome.  The  history  of 
these  corporations  possesses  extreme  interest,  even 
to  those  who  follow  it  without  a  predetermined 
design  to  identify  every  feature  of  their  arrange 
ments  with  a  modern  English  diocese,  or  with  a 
modern  Scottish  presbytery ;  and  not  the  least 


364  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

interesting  portion  of  this  history  is  its  conclusion, 
in  the  final  absorption,  not  without  a  struggle,  of 
these  isolated  communities  within  the  expanding 
hierarchy  of  the  popes. 

In  a  few  humble  architectural  remains,  these 
primitive  bodies  have  left  vestiges  of  their  peculiar 
character  to  the  present  day.  Neither  deriving  the 
form  of  their  buildings  nor  their  other  observances 
from  Rome,  they  failed  to  enter  with  the  rest  of  the 
Church  on  that  course  of  construction  which  led 
towards  Gothic  architecture.  The  earliest  Christian 
churches  on  the  Continent  were  constructed  on  the 
plan  of  the  Roman  basilica,  or  court  of  justice,  and 
wherever  the  Church  of  Rome  spread,  this  method 
of  construction  went  with  her.  The  oldest  style  of 
church-building  —  that  which  used  to  be  called 
Saxon,  and  is  now  sometimes  termed  Norman,  and 
sometimes  Romanesque  —  degenerated  directly  from 
the  architecture  of  Rome.  There  are  ecclesiastical 
buildings  in  France  and  Italy,  of  which  it  might 
fairly  be  debated,  from  their  style,  whether  they 
were  built  by  the  latest  of  the  classical,  or  the  ear 
liest  of  the  Gothic  architects.  The  little  Church 
in  the  West  had  not  the  benefit  of  such  models. 
Places  of  worship,  and  cells,  or  oratories,  were  built 
of  timber,  turf,  or  osiers.  The  biographer  of  Co- 
lumba  describes  his  followers  as  collecting  wattles 
for  the  construction  of  their  first  edifice.  But  they 
had  also  a  few  humble  dwellings  of  stone,  which, 
naturally  enough,  had  no  more  resemblance  to  the 
proud  fanes  of  the  Romish  hierarchy,  than  the  prim- 


THE  EARLY  NORTHERN  SAINTS.          355 

itive  edifices  of  Mexico  and  New  Zealand  had  to 
those  of  modern  Europe.  They  were  first  found  in 
Ireland ;  more  lately,  they  have  been  traced  in  the 
Western  Isles.  They  are  small  rude  domes  of 
rough  stone ;  and  if  it  may  seem  strange  that  the 
form  adapted  to  the  grandest  of  all  architectural 
achievements  should  be  accomplished  by  those  rude 
masons  who  could  not  make  a  Roman  arch,  it  must 
be  remembered,  that  while  the  arch  cannot  be 
constructed  without  artificial  support  or  scaffolding, 
a  dome  on  a  small  scale  may,  and  is  indeed  the 
form  to  which  rude  artists,  with  rude  stones,  and  no 
other  materials,  would  naturally  be  driven.  It  is 
that  in  which  boys  build  their  snow-houses.  I  shall 
not  easily  forget  how,  once,  accompanying  a  pisca 
torial  friend  on  the  Loch  of  Curaan,  near  Bally- 
skelligs,  in  Kerry,  I  stepped  on  a  small  island  to 
visit  a  Norman  ruin  there,  and  saw,  besides  the  ruin 
and  a  stone  cross,  one  of  these  small  rough  domes, 
testifying,  by  its  venerable  simplicity,  that  it  had 
stood  there  centuries  before  the  Norman  church 
beside  it.  But  the  peculiar  characteristics  of  the 
architecture  of  the  West  did  not  stop  short  with 
these  simple  types.  It  advanced,  carrying  in  its 
advance  its  own  significant  character,  until  it  be 
came  mingled  with  the  architecture  propagated 
from  Rome,  as  the  Christian  community  which 
worshipped  within  the  buildings  became  absorbed 
in  the  hierarchy.  The  Oratory  of  Galerus,  in 
Kerry,  is  a  piece  of  solid,  well-conditioned  masonry, 
built  after  a  plan  of  no  mean  symmetry  and  proper- 


366  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

tion,  yet  with  scarcely  a  feature  in  common  with 
the  early  Christian  churches  of  the  rest  of  Europe. 
Like  the  ruder  specimens,  it  struggles  for  as  much 
solidity  and  spaciousness  as  it  can  obtain  in  stone 
work  without  the  help  of  the  arch,  and  it  makes  a 
good  deal  out  of  the  old  Egyptian  plan  of  gradually 
narrowing  the  courses  of  stones  inwards,  until  they 
come  so  near  that  large  slabs  of  stone  can  be  thrown 
across  the  opening.  Some  buildings  of  the  same 
sort  have  been  lately  revealed  in  the  island  of 
Lewis :  one  named  Teampul  Rona,  and  another, 
which  is  dedicated  to  St.  Flannan,  Teampul  Bean- 
nachadh.1  The  specialty  of  both  these,  as  well  as 
of  the  Irish  buildings,  is  that  they  are  edifices  be 
yond  all  question  raised  for  Christian  worship,  that 
they  have  been  built  with  pains  and  skill,  and  yet 
that  they  have  no  vestige  of  that  earlier  type  of 
Christian  architecture  which  Europe  in  general 
obtained  from  Rome. 

In  offering  a  few  stray  remarks  on  the  lives  of 
the  saints,  or,  more  properly  speaking,  the  mission 
aries,  whose  labors  lay  in  the  British  Isles,  it  would 
be  pedantic  to  cite  the  precise  document,  printed 
generally  for  one  or  other  of  the  book  clubs,  which 
supplies  the  authority  for  each  sentence.  I  must, 
however,  mention  one  authority  which  stands  supe 
rior  among  its  brethren  —  the  edition  of  Adamnan's 
Life  of  St.  Columba,  edited  by  Dr.  Reeves,  under 

1  See  Mr.  Mure's  very  curious  volume  on  "  Characteristics  of 
Old  Church  Architecture  in  the  Mainland  and  Western  Islands 
of  Scotland." 


THE  EARLY  NORTHERN  SAINTS.         367 

the  joint  patronage  of  the  Irish  Archaeological  and 
the  Bannatyne  Clubs.  The  original  work  has  long 
been  accepted  as  throwing  a  light  on  the  Christian 
izing  of  the  North,  second  only  to  that  shed  by  the 
invaluable  morsels  in  Bede.  With  wonderful  in 
dustry  and  learning,  the  editor  has  incorporated  the 
small  book  of  Adamnan  in  a  mass  of  new  matter, 
every  word  of  which  is  equally  instructive  and  in 
teresting  to  the  student. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  saints  of  Irish  origin 
supply  by  far  the  more  important  portion  of  our 
hagiology.  They  are  countless.  Taking  merely  a 
topographical  estimate  of  them  —  looking,  that  is, 
to  the  names  of  places  which  have  been  dedicated 
to  them,  or  otherwise  bear  their  names  —  we  find 
them  crowding  Ireland,  and  swarming  over  the 
Highlands  of  Scotland  and  the  North  of  England 
into  London  itself,  where  St.  Bride's  Well  has 
given  a  gloomy  perpetuity  to  the  name  of  the  first 
and  greatest  of  Irish  female  saints.  Some  people 
would  be  content  to  attribute  the  frequentness  of 
saintship  among  the  Irish  and  the  Highlanders  to 
the  opportunities  enjoyed  by  them  from  the  early 
Church  having  found  a  refuge  in  Ireland.  Others 
would  attribute  the  phenomenon  to  the  extreme 
susceptibility  of  the  Celtic  race  to  religious  enthu 
siasm,  and  would  illustrate  their  views  by  referring 
to  the  present  Celtic  population  in  Ireland  under 
the  dominion  of  the  priests,  and  their  brethren  of 
the  west  of  Scotland  equally  under  the  dominion  of 
the  doctrinal  antipodes  of  the  priests  ;  while  the 


368  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

parallel  might  be  illustrated  by  a  reference  to  those 
Highland  Franciscans  called  "  The  Men,"  whose 
belcher  neckcloths  represent  the  cord,  and  their 
Kilmarnock  bonnets  the  cowl. 

At  the  commencement  of  Christianity  the  differ 
ence  between  the  religious  Celt  and  the  religious 
Saxon  was  naturally  far  more  conspicuous  than  it 
is  now.  Bede's  description  of  the  thoughtful  calm 
ness  with  which  Ethel bert  studied  the  preaching 
of  Augustin,  with  all  the  consequences  which  the 
adoption  of  the  new  creed  must  bring  upon  his 
kingdom,  is  still  eminently  characteristic  of  the 
Saxon  nature.  In  the  life  of  St.  Wilbrord  a  scene 
is  described  which  is  not  easily  alluded  to  with  due 
reverence.  The  saint  had  prevailed  on  a  Frisian 
Prince  to  acknowledge  Christianity,  and  be  bap 
tized.  Standing  by  the  font,  with  one  foot  in  the 
water,  a  misgiving  seized  on  him,  and  he  inquired 
touching  his  ancestors,  whether  the  greater  number 
of  them  were  in  the  regions  of  the  blessed,  or  in 
those  of  the  spirits  doomed  to  everlasting  perdition. 
On  being  abruptly  told  by  the  honest  saint  that 
they  were  all,  without  exception,  in  the  latter  re 
gion,  he  withdrew  his  foot  —  he  would  not  desert 
his  race  —  he  would  go  to  the  place  where  he  would 
find  his  dead  ancestors. 

The  conversion  of  the  Picts  by  Columba  seems  to 
have  proceeded  deliberately.  We  find  him,  in  the 
narrative  of  his  life,  exercising  much  influence  on 
Brud  their  king,  and  occasionally  enjoying  a  visit 
to  the  royal  lodge  on  the  pleasant  banks  of  Loch- 


THE  EARLY  NORTHERN  SAINTS. 

ness.  There  he  is  seen  commending  his  friend  and 
fellow-laborer  St.  Cormac  to  the  good  offices  of  the 
Regulus  of  the  Orkney  Islands,  who  is  also  at  the 
court  of  Brud,  to  whom  he  owes  something  akin  to 
allegiance;  for  Columba  looks  to  Brud  as  well  as 
to  the  Orcadian  guest  for  the  proper  attention  being 
paid  to  Cormac.  Still,  honored  and  respected  as  he 
is  in  the  court  of  the  Pictish  monarch,  Columba  is 
not  that  omnipotent  person  which  he  finds  himself 
to  be  in  Dalriada  and  in  Ireland.  There  still  sits 
an  unpleasant  personage  at  the  king's  gate.  A 
Magus,  as  he  is  called  —  a  priest  of  the  old  heathen 
religion  —  is  in  fact  well  received  at  court,  where, 
although  doomed  to  be  superseded  by  the  Christian 
missionary,  he  yet  seems  to  have  been  retained  by 
the  king,  as  a  sort  of  protest  that  he  had  not  put 
himself  entirely  under  the  control  of  the  priests  of 
the  new  doctrine. 

It  was  indeed  among  their  own  people,  the  Celts 
of  Ireland  and  of  the  Irish  colony  in  the  west  of 
Scotland,  that  the  reign  of  these  saints  was  abso 
lute.  But  if  we  count  this  ecclesiastical  influence  a 
feature  of  the  Celtic  nation,  either  the  Welsh  must 
not  be  counted  as  Celts,  or  they  must  be  looked  on 
as  exceptions  from  this  spiritual  dominion.  They 
were  the  people  among  whom,  of  all  the  tribes  who 
inhabited  Britain  between  the  days  of  Julius  Caesar 
and  those  of  William  of  Normandy,  it  might  have 
been  primarily  expected  that  we  would  find  the 
most  vital  Christianity  and  the  greatest  missionary 
force.  They  professed  to  have  carried  with  them 

24 


370  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

into  their  mountains  the  traditions  and  the  national 
ity  of  that  very  important  portion  of  the  Christian 
ized  Roman  Empire  which  was  called  Britannia. 
When  the  heart  of  the  Empire  became  paralyzed, 
this  branch,  doubtless  after  a  long  harassing  con 
test  with  the  Picts  and  the  Irish  of  the  North, 
was  broken,  and  partly  subjected,  partly  driven 
away  by  the  Saxons.  That  they  should  have 
failed,  through  all  their  revolutions  and  calamities, 
to  preserve  any  remnants  of  Roman  social  habits, 
is  not  perhaps  wonderful.  But  that  they  should 
have  failed  to  preserve  enough  of  Christian  influ 
ence  to  second  and  support  the  missions  sent  to 
the  Saxons,  so  soon  after  these  had  superseded  the 
British  power,  looks  like  an  exception  to  the  usual 
rule  of  Christian  progress.  The  Welsh  antiquaries, 
through  meritorious  efforts,  strive  in  vain  to  estab 
lish  the  existence  of  Welsh  ecclesiarchs  during  the 
time  when  the  countless  saints  of  Ireland  were 
swarming  over  Scotland  and  penetrating  into  Eng 
land.  They  point  to  a  stone  said  to  commemorate 
a  victory  gained  over  the  Picts  and  the  Saxons  by 
the  Britons,  not  through  their  courage  or  their  skill 
in  fight,  but  by  the  Halleluiahs  raised  by  two  saints 
who  were  present  in  their  host.  These  saints,  how 
ever,  Gannon  and  Lupus,  were,  as  Bede  tells  us, 
Frenchmen,  missionaries  from  the  Gallican  Church 
to  correct  the  errors  of  the  Britons.  The  venerable 
Bede  scolds  these  Britons  roundly  for  not  having 
kept  up  the  faith  planted  among  them,  and  for 
not  having  been  prepared  to  help  Augustin  and  his 


THE  EARLY  NORTHERN  SAINTS.          371 

followers  in  the  very  hard  task  of  converting  the 
Saxons.  It  is  a  pity  that  we  do  not  know  some 
thing  more  of  Roman  Christianity,  and  indeed  of 
Roman  civilization  generally  in  Britain,  before  the 
Saxon  days.  There  appears  to  have  been  among 
the  Romanized  British  Christians  little  zeal  and  a 
good  deal  of  controversy  and  dissent,  and  we  hear 
a  great  deal  more  of  the  influence  of  the  Pelagian* 

o  o 

heresy  among  them  than  of  the  influence  of  Chris 
tianity  itself. 

The  scantiness  of  our  acquaintance  with  Roman 
Christianity  in  Britain  is  the  more  to  be  regretted, 
because  it  would  have  been  very  interesting  to  com 
pare  its  manifestations  with  those  of  the  Church 
which  found  refuge  in  the  West  during  the  dark 
days  of  Rome  —  the  days  when  the  temporal  em 
pire  was  crushed,  and  the  spiritual  empire  had  not 
arisen.  As  we  might  expect  from  the  ecclesiasti 
cal  conditions  already  noticed,  the  persons  who  first 
exercised  ecclesiastical  authority  in  the  two  islands 
did  not  derive  their  strength  from  any  foreign  hier 
archy,  and  had  no  connection  with  Rome.  Any 
reference,  indeed,  to  the  influence  of  a  Roman  pon 
tiff,  either  actual  or  prospective,  in  the  life  of  any 
of  our  early  saints,  will  prepare  the  critic  for  find 
ing  that  the  life  has  been  written  centuries  after  the 
era  of  the  saint,  or  has  been  tampered  with.  In 
Adamnan's  Life  of  Columba,  Rome  is  mentioned 
once  or  twice  as  a  very  great  city,  but  there  is  no 
allusion  throughout  that  remarkable  biography  to 
any  spiritual  central  authority  exercised  by  the 


372  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

bishop  there  over  the  presbyters  in  Scotland  and 
Ireland.  This  is,  of  course,  nothing  more  than  the 
statement  of  what  the  reader  of  a  book  has  not 
found  in  it.  Any  other  reader  may  find  allusions 
to  the  supremacy  of  the  popedom  over  these  early 
Christian  communities,  if  he  can.  But  I  think  he 
is  likely  to  find  none  ;  and  any  one  who  desires  to 
study  the  real  history  of  the  rise  and  progress  of 
the  spiritual  dominion  of  Rome  would,  with  more 
profit,  take  up  the  books  and  records  referring  to 
events  three  or  four  hundred  years  after  the  age  of 
Columba. 

Self-sustained  as  they  were,  these  isolated  com 
munities  had  a  very  strong  vitality.  The  picture 
exhibited  in  the  hagiographies  is  truly  the  reign  of 
the  saints.  Their  power  was  of  an  immediate,  ab 
rupt,  and  purely  despotic  kind,  which  would  have 
been  neutralized  or  weakened  by  anything  like  a 
central  control.  Prompt  and  blind  obedience  to  the 
commands  of  the  saint-superior  was  the  rule  of  Hy 
or  lona,  and  of  all  the  other  religious  communities 
of  the  West.  Perhaps  there  were  even  here  feuds, 
disputes,  and  mutinies  of  which  no  record  has  been 
preserved.  The  hagiographer  can  only  commemo 
rate  those  which  were  suppressed  by  some  terrible 
manifestation  of  Divine  power,  for  the  person  whose 
life  he  commemorates  is  only  conventionally  and 
nominally  to  be  spoken  of  as  a  mortal ;  he  is  in 
reality  superhuman,  wielding,  whenever  he  pleases, 
the  thunderbolts  of  the  Deity,  annihilating  dissent 
and  disobedience  to  himself,  as  if  it  were  blasphemy 


THE  EARLY  NORTHERN  SAINTS.          373 

in  the  Deity's  own  presence,  and  crushing  by  an 
immediate  miracle  any  effort  to  oppose  his  will, 
were  it  even  about  the  proper  hour  of  setting  off 
on  a  journey,  or  the  dinner  to  be  ordered  for  the 
day. 

The  rank  which  those  primitive  clergy  of  Ireland 
and  the  Highlands  occupy  is  almost  invariably  that 
of  the  saint,  a  rank  as  far  separated  from  that  which 
can  be  conferred  by  any  human  hierarchy  as  heaven 
is  from  earth.  They  were,  as  we  have  seen,  inde 
pendent  of  Rome  from  the  beginning,  and  this  great 
host  of  saints  had  lived  and  left  their  biographies  to 
the  world  long  before  the  system  of  judicial  canoni 
zation.  How  a  boundary  is  professed  to  be  drawn 
between  the  genuine  and  the  false  among  these 
saints  of  the  North,  cannot  be  easily  understood. 
No  one  seems  to  object  to  any  of  them  as  spurious. 
Many  of  them  are  so  very  obscure  that  only  faint 
and  fragmentary  traces  of  them  can  be  found,  yet  it 
seems  never  to  be  questioned  that  they  occupied  the 
transcendent  spiritual  rank  usually  attributed  to 
them.  Of  others  nothing  is  known  but  the  bare 
name,  yet  it  is  never  doubted  that  the  owner  was 
entitled  to  his  attribute  of  saint. 

The  brethren  at  lona  seem  sometimes  to  have 
lived  well,  for  we  hear  of  the  killing  of  heifers  and 
oxen.  A  pragmatical  fellow  declines  to  participate 
in  the  meal  permitted  on  the  occasion  of  a  relaxa 
tion  of  discipline  —  the  saint  tells  him  that  since  he? 
refuses  good  meat  at  a  time  when  he  is  permitted  to- 
have  it,  it  is  to  be  his  doom  to  be  one  of  a  band  of 


374  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

robbers  who  will  be  glad  to  appease  their  li linger  on 
putrid  horse-flesh.  The  ruling  spirit,  however,  of 
this  first  Christian  mission,  as  we  find  it  recorded, 
is  undoubtedly  asceticism.  The  mortification  of 
the  flesh  is  the  temporal  source  of  spiritual  power. 
Some  incidents  occur  which  put  this  spirit  in  a 
shape  bordering  on  the  ludicrous.  A  saint  is  at 
a  loss  to  know  how  his  power  is  waning.  There 
is  some  mysterious  countervailing  influence  acting 
against  him,  which  manifests  itself  in  the  continued 
success  of  an  irreverent  king  or  chief,  whom  he 
thought  he  had  taken  the  proper  spiritual  methods 
to  humble.  He  at  last  discovers  the  mystery  ;  the 
king  had  been  fasting  against  him  —  entering  the 
field  of  asceticism  with  him,  in  short,  and  not  with 
out  success. 

The  biography  of  an  Asiatic  despot,  so  far  as 
other  persons  are  concerned,  is  merely  the  history 
of  his  commands  and  their  obedience.  It  is  only 
incidentally,  therefore,  that  one  is  likely  to  acquire 
any  information  from  it  about  the  people  over  whom 
he  rules.  In  like  manner,  the  life  of  an  Irish  saint 
is  the  history  of  commanding  and  obeying  ;  yet  a 
few  glimpses  of  social  life  may  be  caught  through 
occasional  chinks.  The  relation  which  the  spiritual 
held  towards  the  temporal  powers  is  sufficiently 
•developed  to  give  ground  for  considerable  inquiry 
and  criticism.  The  more  eminent  of  the  saints  had 
great  influence  in  state  affairs,  ruling  in  some  meas 
ure  the  monarchs  themselves.  Some  monarch  is 
occasionally  mentioned  as  the  friend  of  Columba, 


THE  EARLY  NORTHERN  SAINTS.          375 

mucli  as  a  bishop  might  allude  to  this  or  that  lay 
lord  as  among  his  personal  friends.  We  find  him 
settlinof  the  succession  of  Aidan,  the  kino-  of  the 

O  '  O 

Dalriadic  Scots,  through  an  influence  to  which  any 
opposition  was  utterly  hopeless.  Send  your  sons  to 
me,  he  says  to  Aidan,  and  God  will  show  me  who 
is  to  be  your  successor.  The  sign  falls  on  Eochoid 
Buiclli,  and  the  saint  tells  the  king  that  all  his  other 
sons  will  come  to  a  premature  end,  and  they  drop 
off  accordingly,  chiefly  in  battle.  This  power  of 
fixing  the  evil  eye,  of  prophesying  death,  is  found 
in  perpetual  use  among  the  early  saints.  It  is  their 
ultimate  appeal  in  strife  and  contest,  and  their  in 
strument  of  vengeance  when  thwarted  or  affronted  ; 
and  a  terrible  instrument  it  must  have  been.  Who 
could  gainsay  those  believed  to  hold  in  their  hands 
the  issues  of  life  and  death  ? 

In  our  conceptions  of  the  kings  with  whom  these 
saints  were  familiar,  it  may  be  well  not  to  be  misled 
by  words.  We  shall  realize  them  better  at  the 
present  day  by  looking  to  Madagascar  or  the  Mar 
quesas  Islands  than  among  the  states  of  Europe. 
The  palace  was  a  shanty  of  log  or  wattle,  protected, 
perhaps,  by  a  rampart  of  earth  or  uncemented 
stones,  and  the  king  had  a  stone  chair  with  a  few 
mystic  decorations  scratched  on  it,  which  served  for 
his  throne  on  state  occasions.  The  prospect  of  ac 
quiring  a  gold  torque  or  a  silver  drinking-cup  would 
have  a  material  influence  over  his  imperial  policy. 
Were  we  to  believe  the  fabulous  historians,  Ireland 
was  for  centuries  a  compact  kingdom  under  one  im- 


376  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

perial  sovereign,  who  presided  over  subsidiary  rulers 
in  the  provinces.  But  although  sometimes  one  pro 
vincial  king  was  powerful  enough  to  keep  the  others 
in  subjection,  old  Celtic  Ireland  never  was  a  king 
dom,  properly  speaking,  for  it  never  had  a  nation 
ality.  Some  people  maintain,  not  without  reason, 
that  the  facility  with  which  a  nationality  resolves 
itself  into  existence  depends  much,  not  only  on 
race,  but  on  geological  conditions.  The  Celtic 
Irish  seem  to  have  always  been  too  busy  with 
local  feuds  and  rivalries  to  achieve  any  broad  na 
tionality.  And  the  nature  of  their  country — a 
vast  plain  intersected  by  morasses  and  rivers,  and 
here  and  there  edged  with  mountain  ranges  —  is 
unfavorable  to  the  growth  of  a  nationality,  since  it 
presents  no  general  centre  of  defence  against  a  for 
eign  enemy,  like  that  great  central  range  of  moun 
tains  in  Scotland,  which  Columba's  biographers  call 
the  Dorsum  Britannia?  —  the  Backbone  of  Britain. 
Ireland,  indeed,  seems  to  have  had  no  conception  of 
a  nationality  until  such  a  thing  was  suggested  by 
the  Normans  and  the  Saxons,  after  they  had  been 
long  enough  there  to  feel  patriotic.  And  so  it  has 
generally  happened  that  any  alarming  outbreaks 
against  the  imperial  government  have  been  Jed  by 
people  of  Norman  or  Saxon  descent. 

Still  there  is  no  doubt,  difficult  as  it  may  be  to 
realize  the  idea,  that  at  the  times  with  which  we 
are  dealing,  Ireland  enjoyed  a  kind  of  civilization, 
which  enabled  its  princes  and  its  priests  to  look 
down  on  Pictland,  and  even  on  Saxon  England,  as 


THE  EARLY  NORTHERN  SAINTS.          377 

barbarian.  The  Roman  dominion  had  not  pene 
trated  among  them,  but  the  very  remoteness  which 
kept  the  island  beyond  the  boundaries  of  the  Em 
pire  also  kept  it  beyond  the  range  of  the  destroyers 
of  the  Empire,  and  made  it  in  reality  the  repository 
of  the  vestiges  of  imperial  civilization  in  the  north. 
Perhaps  the  difference  between  the  two  grades  of 
civilization  might  be  about  the  same  as  we  could 

o 

have  found  ten  years  ago  between  Tahiti  and  New 
Zealand. 

An  extensive  and  minute  genealogical  ramifica 
tion,  when  it  is  authentic,  is  a  condition  of  a  pretty 
far  advanced  state  of  civilization.  Abandoning  the 
old  fabulous  genealogies  which  went  back  among 
the  Biblical  patriarchs,  the  rigid  antiquaries  of  Ire 
land  find  their  way  through  authentic  sources  to 
genealogical  connections  of  a  truly  marvellous  ex 
tent.  Such  illustrious  men  as  the  saints  can  of 
course  be  easily  traced,  as  all  were  proud  to  estab 
lish  connection  with  them,  while  Columba  himself 
and  several  others  were  men  of  royal  descent.  But 
of  the  casual  persons  mentioned  in  the  Life  of  Co 
lumba,  Dr.  Reeves  hunts  out  the  genealogy  —  fully 
as  successfully,  one  would  say,  as  that  of  any  per 
sons  of  the  country-gentleman  class  in  Britain,  liv 
ing  at  the  beginning  of  this  century,  could  be  estab 
lished.  There  are,  indeed,  many  characteristics  in 
the  hagiologic  literature  bearing  an  analogy  to  mod 
ern  social  habits  so  close  as  to  be  almost  ludicrous  ; 
and  it  is  not  easy  to  deal  with  these  conditions  of  a 
very  distant  age,  brought  to  us  as  they  are  through 


378  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

the  vehicle  of  a  language  which  is  neither  classical 
nor  vernacular,  but  conventional  —  the  corrupt 
Latin  in  which  the  biographers  of  the  saints  found 
it  convenient  to  write.  It  would  appear  that  when 
he  was  in  Ireland,  St.  Columba  kept  his  carriage, 
and  the  loss  of  the  lynch-pin  on  one  occasion  is 
connected  with  a  notable  miracle.  Dr.  Reeves,  as 
appropriate  to  this,  remarks  that  "  the  memoirs  of 
St.  Patrick  in  the  Book  of  Armagh  make  frequent 
mention  of  his  chariot,  and  even  name  his  driver." 
It  is  difficult  to  suppose  such  a  vehicle  ever  becom 
ing  available  in  lona  ;  but  there  Columba  seems  to 
have  been  provided  with  abundance  of  vessels,  and 
he  could  send  for  a  friend,  in  the  way  in  which 
MacGillicallum's  "  carriage,"  in  the  form  of  a  boat, 
was  sent  for  Johnson  and  Boswell. 

There  are  many  other  things  in  these  books 
which  have  a  sound  more  familiar  to  us  than  any 
sense  which  they  really  convey.  Here  the  saint 
blesses  the  store  of  a  "  homo  plebeius  cum  uxore 
et  filiis  "  —  a  poor  man  with  a  wife  and  family  — 
a  term  expressively  known  in  this  day  among  all 
who  have  to  deal  with  the  condition  of  their  fellow- 
men,  from  the  chancellor  of  the  exchequer  to  the 
relieving-officer.  In  the  same  chapter  we  are  told, 
"  de  quodam  viro  divito  tenacissimo  "  —  of  a  very 
hard-fisted  rich  fellow  —  a  term  thoroughly  signifi 
cant  in  civilized  times.  He  is  doomed,  by  the  way, 
to  become  bankrupt,  and  fall  into  such  poverty  that 
his  offspring  will  be  found  dead  in  a  ditch  —  a  fate 
also  intelligible  in  the  nineteenth  century.  In  an- 


THE  EARLY  NORTHERN  SAINTS.  379 

other  place  we  have  among  the  saint's  suitors  "  ple- 
beius  pauperrimus,  qui  in  ea  habitabat  regione  qure 
Stagni  litoribus  Aporici  est  contermina."  The 
"  Stagnum  Aporicum "  is  Lochaber ;  so  here  we 
have  a  pauper  from  the  neighborhood  of  Lochaber 
—  a  designation  which  I  take  to  be  familiarly 
known  at  "  the  Board  of  Supervision  for  the  Re 
lief  of  the  Poor  in  Scotland."  We  are  told,  too, 
of  the  saint  being  at  a  plebeian  feast,  and  of  a  ple- 
beius  in  the  island  of  Raghery  quarrelling  with  his 
wife. 

The  thoughtful  student  will  find  a  more  distin 
guished  analogy  with  the  habits  of  later  civilization 
in  the  literature  of  these  early  churchmen.  The 
subject  of  the  introduction  of  letters  into  Ireland, 
and  the  very  early  literature  of  that  country,  is 
too  large  to  be  handled  here.  It  is  certain  that  in 
Columba's  era,  the  middle  of  the  sixth  century, 
books  were  written  and  used  in  Ireland.  The  re 
spect  paid  to  a  book  in  that  age  was  something 
beyond  that  of  the  most  ardent  book-hunter. 
Many  of  the  most  exciting  of  the  saintly  miracles 
have  for  their  end  the  preservation  of  a  book  in  fire 
or  in  water.  The  custody  of  the  Book  of  Armagh 
containing  St.  Patrick's  canons  was  a  great  hered 
itary  office  ;  and  the  princely  munificence  which 
provided  the  book  with  a  suitable  case  or  shrine 
in  the  tenth  century  is  recorded  in  Irish  history. 
Besides  their  costly  shrines  already  referred  to, 
these  books  often  had  for  an  outer  covering  a  bag 
or  satchel,  in  which  the  sacred  deposit  was  carried 


380  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

from  place  to  place.  The  heart  must  be  dead  to 
all  natural  sensations  that  does  not  sympathize  with 
Dr.  Reeves  in  the  following  triumphant  announce 
ment  :  — 

"  Of  leather  cases  the  cover  of  the  Book  of  Ar 
magh  is  the  most  interesting  example  now  remain 
ing.  It  came,  together  with  its  inestimable  inclos- 
ure,  into  the  writer's  possession  at  the  end  of  1853, 
and  is  now  lying  before  him.  It  is  formed  of  a  sin 
gle  piece  of  strong  leather,  36  inches  long  and  12 
broad,  folded  in  such  a  way  as  to  form  a  six-sided 
case  12  inches  long,  12^  broad,  and  2f  thick,  hav 
ing  a  flap  which  doubles  over  in  front,  and  is  fur 
nished  with  a  rude  lock  and  eight  staples,  admitted 
through  perforations  in  the  flap,  for  short  iron  rods 
to  enter  and  meet  at  the  lock.  The  whole  outer 
surface,  which  has  become  perfectly  black  from  age, 
is  covered  with  figures  and  interlacings  of  the  Irish 
pattern  in  relief,  which  appear  to  have  been  pro 
duced  by  subjecting  the  leather,  in  a  damp  state, 
before  it  was  folded,  to  pressure  upon  a  block  of 
the  whole  size,  having  a  depressed  pattern,  and 
allowing  it  to  remain  until  the  impression  became 
indelible." 

A  pleasing  peculiarity  in  the  personal  habits  of 
these  recluses  is  their  frequent  communion  with 
birds  and  the  gentler  kind  of  beasts.  Their  leg 
endary  histories  speak  of  these  animals  as  apt  me 
diums  of  vaticination  and  miraculous  intervention  ; 
but  we  must  be  content,  in  the  present  age,  to  sup 
pose  that  their  frequent  appearance,  their  familiar 


THE  EARLY  NORTHERN  SAINTS.          381 

intercourse  with  the  saints,  and  the  quaint  and  ami 
able  incidents  in  which  they  figure,  are  in  reality 
characteristic  memorials  of  the  kindly  feelings  and 
the  innocent  pursuits  natural  to  men  of  gentle  dis 
position  and  retired  life.  Thus  Columba  one  day 
gives  directions  to  a  brother  to  be  on  the  watch  at 
a  certain  point  in  the  island  of  lona,  for  there,  by 
nine  o'clock  on  that  day,  a  certain  stranger  stork 
will  alight  and  drop  down,  utterly  fatigued  with 
her  journey  across  the  ocean.  That  stork  the 
brother  is  enjoined  to  take  up  gently,  and  convey 
to  the  nearest  house,  and  feed  and  tend  for  three 
days,  after  which  she  will  take  wing  and  fly  away 
to  the  sweet  spot  of  her  native  Ireland,  whence  she 
had  wandered.  And  this  the  brother  is  to  do  be 
cause  the  bird  is  a  guest  from  their  own  beloved 
native  land.  The  brother  departs,  and  returns  at 
the  proper  time.  Columba  asks  no  questions  —  he 
knows  what  has  taken  place,  and  commends  the 
obedient  piety  of  the  brother  who  had  sheltered 
and  tended  the  wanderer. 

Another  saint,  Ailbhe,  had  a  different  kind  of 
intercourse  with  certain  cranes.  They  went  about 
in  a  large  body,  destroying  the  corn  in  the  neigh 
borhood,  and  would  not  be  dispersed.  The  saint 
went  and  delivered  an  oration  to  them  on  the  un 
reasonableness  of  their  conduct,  and  forthwith,  peni 
tent  and  somewhat  ashamed,  they  soared  into  the 
air  and  went  their  way.  "  St.  Cuthbert's  ducks  " 
acquired  a  long  celebrity.  When  that  reverenced 
ascetic  went  to  take  up  his  residence  in  the  wave- 


382  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

bounded  solitude  of  the  Fame  Islands,  he  found  the 
solan-geese  there  imbued  with  the  wild  habits  com 
mon  to  their  storm-nurtured  race,  and  totally  un 
conscious  of  the  civilization  and  refinement  of  their 
kinsmen  who  graze  on  commons,  and  hiss  at  chil 
dren  and  dogs.  St.  Cuthbert  tamed  them  through 
his  miraculous  powers,  and  made  them  as  obedient 
and  docile  a  flock  as  abbot  ever  ruled.  The  geese 
went  before  him  in  regular  platoons,  following  the 
word  of  command,  and  doing  what  he  ordered  — 
whether  it  might  be.  the  most  ordinary  act  of  the 
feathered  biped,  or  some  mighty  miracle.  Under 
his  successors  their  conduct  seems  to  have  been  less 
regular,  though  certainly  not  less  peculiar ;  for  we 
are  told  that  they  built  their  nests  on  the  altar,  and 
around  the  altar,  and  in  all  the  houses  of  the  island  ; 
further,  that,  during  the  celebration  of  mass,  they 
familiarly  pecked  the  officiating  priest  and  his  assist 
ants  with  their  bills.  It  is  curious  enough  that  the 
miraculous  education  of  the  birds  makes  its  appear 
ance  in  a  Scottish  legal  or  official  document  at  the 
close  of  the  fifteenth  century.  It  is  an  instrument 
recording  an  attestation  to  the  enormous  value  of 
the  down  of  these  renowned  birds  ;  and  seems,  in 
deed,  to  be  an  advertisement  or  puff  by  merchants 
dealing  in  the  ware,  though  its  ponderous  Latinity 
is  in  curious  contrast  with  the  neat  examples  of 
that  kind  of  literature  to  which  we  are  accustomed 
in  these  days.1 

1  "  Instrumentum  super  Aucis  Sancti  Cuthberti."  —  Spalding 
Club. 


THE  EARLY  NORTHERN  SAINTS.          383 

One  of  the  prettiest  of  the  stories  about  birds  is 
divided  between  St.  Serf,  the  founder  of  a  monastery 
on  Loch  Leven,  and  St.  Kentigern,  the  patron  of 
Glasgow,  where  lie  is  better  known  as  St.  Mungo. 
Kentigern  was  one  among  a  parcel  of  neophyte  boys 
whom  the  worthy  old  Serf,  or  Servanus,  was  per 
fecting  in  the  knowledge  of  the  truth.  Their  teacher 
had  a  feathered  pet  —  "  qusedam  avicula  quse  vulgo 
ob  ruborem  corpusculi  rubisca  nuncupatur  "  —  a 
robin-redbreast  in  fact,  an  animal  whose  good  for 
tune  it  is  never  to  be  mentioned  without  some 
kindly  reference  to  his  universal  popularity,  and 
the  decoration  which  renders  him  so  easily  recog 
nized  wherever  he  appears.  St.  Serf's  robin  was  a 
wonderful  bird  ;  he  not  only  took  food  from  his 
master's  hand  and  pecked  about  him  according  to 
the  fashion  of  tame  and  familiar  birds,  but  took  a 
lively  interest  in  his  devotions  and  studies  by  flap 
ping  his  wings  and  crowing  in  his  own  little  way, 
so  as  to  be  a  sort  of  chorus  to  the  acts  of  the  saint. 
The  old  man  enjoyed  this  extremely ;  and  his  biog 
rapher,  with  more  geniality  than  hagiographers  usu 
ally  show,  sympathizes  with  this  innocent  recrea 
tion,  applying  the  example  of  the  bow  that  was  not 
always  bent  in  a  manner  suggestive  of  suspicions 
that  he  was  not  entirely  unacquainted  with  profane 
letters.  One  day,  when  the  saint  had  retired  to  his 
devotions,  the  boys  amused  themselves  with  his  lit 
tle  pet ;  and  a  struggle  arising  among  them  for  its 
possession,  the  head  was  torn  from  the  body  —  alto 
gether  a  natural  incident.  Thereupon,  says  the 


384  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

narrator,  fear  was  turned  to  grief,  and  the  avenging 
birch  —  "plagas  virgarum  quae  puerorum  gravissima 
torinenta  esse  solent"  — arose  terribly  in  their  sight. 
It  was  at  this  moment  that  an  unpopular  pupil, 
named  Kentigern  —  a  new  boy,  apparently  —  a 
stranger  who  had  not  taken  in  good-fellowship  to 
the  rest  of  the  school,  but  was  addicted  to  solitary 
meditation,  entered  the  guilty  conclave.  Their 
course  was  taken  —  they  threw  the  fragments  of 
the  bird  into  his  hands  and  bolted.  St.  Serf  en 
ters,  and  the  crew  are  awaiting  in  guilty  exulta 
tion  the  bursting  of  his  wrath.  The  consecrated 
youth,  however,  fitting  the  severed  parts  to  each 
other,  signs  the  cross,  raises  his  pure  hands  to 
heaven,  and  breathes  an  appropriate  prayer  —  when 
lo !  robin  lifts  his  little  head,  expands  his  wings, 
and  hops  away  to  meet  his  master.  In  the  eucha- 
ristic  office  of  St.  Kentigern's  day,  this  event,  along 
with  the  restoration  to  life  of  a  meritorious  cook, 
and  other  miracles,  inspired  a  canticle  which,  for 
long  subsequent  ages,  was  exultingly  sung  by  the 
choristers  in  the  saint's  own  cathedral  of  Glasgow, 
thus  :  — 

"  Garrit  ales  pernecatus. 
Cocus  est  resuscitatus. 
Salit  vervex  truciclatus 
Amputate  capite." 

A  bird  proper,  on  the  shield  argent  of  the  city  of 
Glasgow,  has  been  identified  with  the  resuscitated 
pet  of  the  patron  saint.  The  tree  on  which  it  is 
there  perched  is  a  commemoration  of  another  of  the 


THE  EARLY  NORTHERN  SAINTS.         385 

saint's  miracles.  In  a  time  of  frost  and  snow  his 
enemies  had  extinguished  his  fire  ;  but  immediately 
drawing  on  the  miraculous  resources  ever  at  the 
command  of  his  class  on  such  emergencies,  he 
breathed  fire  into  a  frozen  branch  from  the  forest ; 
and  it  was  centuries  afterwards  attested  that  the 
green  branches  of  that  forest  made  excellent  fire 
wood. 

Another  element  in  the  blazon  of  the  Venice  of 
the  west  is  a  fish,  laid  across  the  stem  of  the  tree, 
"  in  base,"  as  the  heralds  say,  but  not,  as  generally 
depicted,  conformable  either  to  their  science,  or  that 
of  the  ichthyologist.  This  fish  holds  in  its  mouth 
something  like  a  dish  —  in  reality  a  ring,  and  thus 
commemorates  a  miraculous  feat  of  the  same  saint, 
which  has  found  its  way  into  the  romances  of  the 
juvenile  portion  of  the  reading  public,  where  it  is  a 
standard  nuisance.  Queen  Cadyow,  whose  conduct 
was  of  such  a  character  that  it  is  wonderful  how 
any  respectable  saint  could  have  prevailed  on  him 
self  to  serve  her,  gives  her  bridal  ring  to  a  para 
mour.  Her  husband  lures  the  rival  away  to  the 
bank  of  the  Clyde,  to  sleep  after  the  fatigues  of 
the  chase,  and  there,  furtively  removing  the  ring, 
pitches  it  into  the  river.  The  reader  knows  the  re 
sult  by  instinct.  St.  Kentigern,  appealed  to,  directs 
the  first  salmon  that  can  be  caught  in  the  Clyde  to 
be  opened,  and  there,  of  course,  is  the  ring  in  the 
stomach.  This  miracle  is  as  common  in  the  "  Acta 
Sanctorum  "  as  in  the  juvenile  romances.  It 
served  St.  Nathalan  in  such  a  manner  as  to  pre- 
25 


386  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

elude  the  supposition  that  the  saint  had  invoked 
it  on  the  occasion.  He  locked  himself  into  iron 
chains,  and  threw  their  key  into  the  river  Dee, 
in  order  that  he  might  be  unable  to  open  the  fet 
terlock  before  he  had  made  a  pilgrimage  to  the 
tombs  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul ;  but  the  water 
did  its  duty,  and  restored  the  key  in  the  stomach 
of  a  fish. 

We  have  naturally  many  fishing  anecdotes  con 
nected  with  the  northern  saints.  Columba  is  de 
scribed  as  out  a-fishing  one  day1  with  a  parcel  of 
his  disciples,  who  are  characterized  as  "  strenui 
piscatores,"  a  term  which  would  be  highly  applica 
ble  to  many  a  Waltonian  of  the  present  day.  The 
saint,  desirous  of  affording  them  a  pleasant  surprise, 
directs  them  'to  cast  their  net  where  a  wonderful 
fish  was  prepared  for  them  ;  and  they  drag  out  an 
"  esox  "  (whatever  that  may  mean)  of  wonderful 
size. 

Some  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  deep  familiar  to 
these  saints  were  animals  of  a  formidable  kind. 
Columba  and  a  band  of  his  disciples  are  going  to 

i  [What  a  comfortable  tiling  is  this  genuine  bit  of  English, — 
out  a-fishing  !  Why  is  it  that  the  men  who  really  have  the  power 
to  mould  the  language  will  not  make  a  stand  in  favor  of  this  fine 
idiom,  in  which,  as  Ben  Jonson  says,  "  the  participle  hath  the 
force  of  a  gerund  "  ?  Why  shall  we  not  continue  to  say,  while 
this  thing  was  a-doing,  instead  of,  while  this  thing  was  being 
done  ;  while  the  wall  was  a-building,  instead  of,  while  the  wall 
was  being  built  ?  The  one  is  simple,  idiomatic  English,  that  a 
child  or  a  wayfaring  man  can  understand  ;  and  yet  it  is  set  aside 
by  exquisites  in  grammar  in  favor  of  the  other  complex,  illogi 
cal  barbarism.  —  W.] 


THE  EARLY  NORTHERN  SAINTS.          387 

cross  the  river  Ness,  when  they  meet  those  who 
bear  on  their  shoulders  the  body  of  one  who,  en 
deavoring  to  swim  across  the  same  river,  had  been 
bitten  to  death  by  a  monster  of  the  deep.  The 
saint,  in  the  face  of  this  gloomy  procession,  requires 
that  one  of  his  disciples  shall  swim  across  the  Ness, 
and  bring  over  a  boat  which  is  on  the  other  side. 
A  disciple  named  Mocumin,  whom  the  saint  had 
miraculously  cured  of  a  bleeding  of  the  nose,  con 
fident  in  the  protecting  power  of  his  master,  pulls 
off  all  his  clothes  save  his  tunica  (whatever  that 
may  be — -coat,  kilt,  or  leathern  shirt),  and  takes  to 
the  water.  The  monster,  who  is  reposing  deep 
down  in  the  stillness  of  the  profoundest  pool,  hears 
the  stir  of  the  water  above,  and  is  seen  to  rise  with 
a  splash  on  the  surface,  and  make  with  distended 
jaws  for  the  swimmer.  The  saint,  of  course,  orders 
the  beast  back  just  at  the  moment  when  all  seemed 
over,  and  is  instantly  obeyed.  The  characteristics 
of  the  monster  could  not  be  more  closely  identical 
with  those  of  the  crocodile  or  alligator,  had  the  in 
cident  been  narrated  in  Egypt  or  America. 

Adventures  with  such  monsters  in  our  northern 
waters  supply  many  of  the  triumphs  attributed  to 
the  saints.  St.  Colman  of  Drumore  actually  ex 
tracted  a  young  girl  alive  from  the  stomach  of  an 
"  aquetalis  bestia."  She  had  been  swallowed  while 
standing  on  the  edge  of  a  lake,  "  camisiam  suam 
lavantem"  —  washing  her  chemise,  poor  simple  soul. 
St.  Molua  saw  a  monster,  the  size  of  a  large  boat, 
in  pursuit  of  two  boys  swimming  unconscious  of 


388  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

danger  in  a  lake  in  the  county  of  Monaglian.  He 
showed  good  worldly  sense  and  presence  of  mind 
on  the  occasion  ;  for,  instead  of  alarming  them  with 
an  announcement  of  their  perilous  condition,  he 
called  out  to  them  to  try  a  race  and  see  which 
would  reach  the  bank  first.  The  beast,  balked  of 
his  prey,  took  in  good  part  an  admonition  by  the 
saint,  and  returned  no  more  to  frighten  boys. 

From  fishes  and  aquatic  monsters  the  law  of  asso 
ciation  naturally  leads  us  to  the  waters  themselves. 
There  are  throughout  the  United  Kingdom  multi 
tudes  of  wells,  still  bearing  the  names  of  the  saints 
to  whom  they  were  dedicated.  Some  of  these,  re 
mote  from  cities  and  advanced  opinions,  are  still 
haunted  by  people,  who  believe  them  to  be  endowed 
with  supernatural  healing  virtues.  It  is  in  Romish 
Ireland,  of  course,  that  this  belief  has  its  most  legit 
imate  seat,  but  even  in  the  most  orthodoxly-Pres- 
byterian  districts  of  Scotland,  a  lingering  dubious 
trust  in  the  healing  virtues  of  sanctified  fountains 
has  given  much  perplexity  to  the  clergy. 

Some  of  these  fountains  are  in  caverns,  and  if  in 
any  one  of  these  the  well  falls  into  a  rude-hewn 
basin  like  a  font,  we  may  be  sure  that  a  hermit  fre 
quented  the  cave,  and  that  it  was  the  place  of  wor 
ship  of  early  converts.  Such  a  cave  was  the  hiding- 
place,  after  the  '45,  of  the  worthy  single-minded 
Lord  Pitsligo,  no  bad  prototype  of  the  Baron  of 
Bradwardine.  It  is  entered  by  a  small  orifice  like 
a  fox's  hole,  in  the  face  of  the  rugged  cliffs  which 
front  the  German  Ocean  near  Troup-head.  Grad- 


THE  EARLY  NORTHERN  SAINTS.          389 

ually  it  rises  to  a  noble  arched  cavern,  at  the  end 
of  which  stands  the  stone  font,  filled  with  clear 
living  water,  which,  save  when  it  was  the  frugal 
drink  of  the  poor  Jacobite  refugee,  has  probably 
been  scarcely  disturbed  since  the  early  day  when 
heathen  men  and  women  went  thither  to  throw  off 
their  idolatry  and  enter  the  pale  of  Christendom. 
The  unnoticeable  smallness  of  many  of  these  con 
secrated  wells  makes  their  very  reminiscence  and 
still  semi-sacred  character  all  the  more  remarkable. 
The  stranger  hears  rumors  of  a  distinguished  well 
miles  on  miles  off.  He  thinks  he  will  find  an  an 
cient  edifice  over  it,  or  some  other  conspicuous  ad 
junct.  Nothing  of  the  kind  —  he  has  been  lured 
all  that  distance  over  rock  and  bog  to  see  a  tiny 
spring  bubbling  out  of  the  rock,  such  as  he  may  see 
hundreds  of  in  a  tolerable  walk  any  day.  Yet,  if 
he  search  in  old  topographical  authorities,  he  will 
find  that  the  little  well  has  ever  been  an  important 
feature  of  the  district  —  that,  century  after  century, 
it  has  been  unforgotten  ;  and,  with  diligence,  he 
may  perhaps  trace  it  to  some  incident  in  the  life  of 
the  saint,  dead  more  than  1200  years  ago,  whose 
name  it  bears.  Highlanders  still  make  pilgrimages 
to  drink  the  waters  of  such  fountains,  which  they 
judiciously  mix  with  the  other  aqua  to  which  they 
are  attached.  They  sometimes  mimic  the  spirit  of 
the  old  pilgrimage,  by  leaving  behind  them  an  offer 
ing  at  the  fountain.  I  have  seen  such  offerings  by 
the  brink  of  remote  Highland  springs.  The  market 
value  of  them  would  not  afford  an  alarming  esti- 


390  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

mate  of  the  intensity  of  the  superstition  still  linger 
ing  in  this  form  in  the  land.  The  logic  of  the  de 
positors  probahly  suggests,  that  the  spiritual  guar 
dians  of  the  fountain,  though  amenable  to  flattery 
and  propitiation  by  gift,  are  not  really  well  informed 
about  the  market  value  of  worldly  chattels,  and  are 
easily  put  off  with  rubbish. 

A  historical  inquiry  into  the  worship  or  conse 
cration  of  wells  and  other  waters  would  be  interest 
ing.  In  countries  near  the  tropics,  where  sandy 
deserts  prevail,  a  well  must  ever  have  been  a  thing 
of  momentous  importance ;  and  we  find  among  the 
tribes  of  Israel  the  digging  down  a  well  spoken  of 
as  the.  climax  of  reckless,  heartless,  and  awful  de- 
structiveness.  To  find,  however,  how  in  watery 
Ireland  and  Scotland  a  mere  driblet  of  the  element 
so  generally  abounding  should  have  been  an  object 
of  veneration  for  centuries,  we  must  look  to  some 
thing  beyond  physical  wants  and  their  supply. 

The  principal  cause  of  the  sanctification  of  springs 
must,  of  course,  be  explained  by  the  first  of  Chris 
tian  ordinances.  The  spring  close  by  the  dwelling 
or  cell  of  the  saint  —  the  spring  on  account  of  which 
he  probably  selected  the  centre  of  his  mission  —  had 
not  only  washed  the  forefathers  of  the  district  from 
the  stain  of  primeval  heathenism,  but  had  applied 
the  visible  sign  by  which  all,  from  generation  to 
generation,  had  been  admitted  into  the  bosom  of 
the  Church.  This  might  seem  to  afford  a  cause 
sufficient  in  itself  for  the  effect,  yet  it  appears  to 
have  been  aided  by  other  causes  more  recondite  and 


THE  EARLY  NORTHERN  SAINTS.          391 

mysterious.  Notwithstanding  all  the  trash  talked 
about  Druids  and  other  persons  of  this  kind,  we 
know  extremely  little  of  the  heathenism  of  the 
British  Isles.  The  little  that  we  do  know  is  learned 
from  the  meagre  notices  which  the  biographers  of 
the  saints  have  furnished  of  that  which  the  saints 
superseded.  It  is  not  their  function  to  commemo 
rate  the  abominations  of  heathenism  ;  they  would 
rather  bury  it  in  eternal  oblivion — premat  nox  alia 
—  but  they  cannot  entirely  tell  the  triumphs  of 
their  spiritual  heroes  without  some  reference,  how 
ever  faint,  to  the  conquered  enemies. 

The  earliest  recorded  conflicts  between  the  new 
and  the  old  creed  are  connected  with  fountains.  In 
one  page  of  the  Life  of  Columba  we  find  the  saint, 
on  a  child  being  brought  to  him  for  baptism,  in  a 
desert  place  where  no  water  was,  striking  the  rock 
like  Moses,  and  drawing  forth  a  rill,  which  remained 
in  perennial  existence  —  a  fountain  surrounded  by  a 
special  sanctity.  In  the  next  page  he  deals  with  a 
well  in  the  hands  of  the  Magi.  They  had  put  a 
demon  of  theirs  into  it  to  such  effect,  that  any  un 
fortunate  person  washing  himself  in  the  well  or 
drinking  of  its  water,  was  forthwith  stricken  with 
paralysis,  or  leprosy,  or  blindness  of  an  eye,  or  some 
other  corporeal  calamity.  The  malignant  powers 
with  which  they  had  inspired  this  formidable  well 
spread  far  around  the  fear  of  the  Magi,  and  conse 
quently  their  influence.  But  the  Christian  mission 
aries  were  to  show  a  power  of  a  different  kind  —  a 
power  of  beneficence,  excelling  and  destroying  the 


392  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

power  of  malignity.  The  process  adopted  is  fully 
described.  The  saint,  after  a  suitable  invocation, 
washed  his  hands  and  feet  in  the  water,  and  then 
drank  of  it  with  his  disciples.  The  Magi  looked  on 
with  a  malignant  smile  to  see  the  accursed  well  pro 
duce  its  usual  effect ;  but  the  saint  and  his  followers 
came  away  uninjured :  the  demon  was  driven  out 
of  the  well,  and  it  became  ever  afterwards  a  holy 
fountain,  curing  many  of  their  infirmities.  Another 
miracle,  bearing  against  the  Magi,  introduces  us  to 
one  of  their  number  by  name,  and  gives  a  little  of 
his  domestic  history.  His  name  is  Broichan,  and 
he  is  tutor  to  Brud,  king  of  the  Picts,  with  whom 
he  dwells  on  the  banks  of  the  Ness.  It  might  have 
relieved  the  mind  of  the  historical  inquirer  to  be 
told  that  Brud  built  for  himself  the  remarkable 
vitrified  fort  of  Craig-Phadric,  which  rises  high 
above  the  Ness,  and  to  be  informed  of  the  manner 
in  which  its  calcined  rampart  was  constructed  ;  but 
nothing  is  said  on  the  subject,  and  Craig-Phadric 
stands  on  its  own  isolated  merits,  still  to  be  guessed 
at,  without  one  tangible  word  out  of  record  or  his 
tory  to  help  any  theory  about  its  object  or  construc 
tion  home  to  a  conclusion.  One  is  free,  however, 
to  imagine  Brud,  the  heathen  king  of  the  Picts, 
living  on  the  scarped  top  of  the  hill,  in  a  lodging 
of  wattled  or  wooden  houses,  surrounded  by  a  ram 
part  of  stones  fused  by  fire,  as  the  only  cement  then 
known.  Such  we  may  suppose  to  have  been  the 
"  domus  regia,"  whence  the  saint  walked  out  in  a 
very  bad  humor  to  the  river  Ness,  from  the  pebbles 


THE  EARLY  NORTHERN  SAINTS.          393 

of  which  he  selected  one  white  stone,  to  be  turned 
to  an  important  use.  Broichan,  the  Magus,  had  in 
his  possession  a  female  slave  from  Ireland.  Colum- 
ba,  who  seems  to  have  held  with  him  such  inter 
course  as  a  missionary  to  the  Choctaws  might  have 
with  a  great  medicine-man,  desired  that  the  Magus 
should  manumit  the  woman,  for  what  reason  we 
are  not  distinctly  told ;  but  it  is  easy  to  suppose 
strong  grounds  for  intervention  when  a  Christian 
missionary  finds  a  woman,  of  his  own  country  and 
creed,  the  slave  of  a  heathen  priest.  Columba's 
request  was  refused.  Losing  patience,  he  had  re 
sort  to  threats  ;  and  at  length,  driven  to  his  ulti 
matum,  he  denounced  death  to  Broichan  if  the 
slave  were  not  released  before  his  own  return  to 
Ireland.  Columba  told  his  disciples  to  expect  two 
messengers  to  come  from  the  king  to  tell  of  the 
sudden  and  critical  illness  of  Broichan.  The  mes 
sengers  rushed  in  immediately  after  to  claim  the 
saint's  intervention.  Broichan  had  been  suddenly 
stricken  by  an  angel  sent  for  the  purpose ;  and  as 
if  he  had  been  taking  his  dram  in  a  modern  gin- 
palace,  we  are  told  that  the  drinking-glass,  or  glass 
drinking-vessel,  "  vitrea  bibera,"  which  he  was  con 
veying  to  his  lips,  was  smashed  in  pieces,  and  he 
himself  seized  with  deadly  sickness.  Columba  sends 
the  consecrated  pebble,  with  a  prescription  that  the 
water  in  which  it  is  dipped  is  to  be  drunk.  If, 
before  he  drinks,  Broichan  releases  his  slave,  he  is 
to  recover ;  if  not,  he  dies.  The  Magus  complies, 
and  is  saved.  The  consecrated  stone,  which  had 


394  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

the  quality  of  floating  in  water  like  a  nut,  was  after 
wards,  as  we  are  told,  preserved  in  the  treasury  of 
the  king  of  the  Picts.  It  has  been  lost  to  the 
world,  along  with  the  saint's  white  robe  and  his 
consecrated  banner,  both  of  which  performed  mir 
acles  after  his  death.  But  the  sanitary  influence 
attributed  to  the  water  in  which  consecrated  stones 
have  been  dipped,  is  a  superstition  scarcely  yet  up 
rooted  in  Scotland. 


Sermons  in  Stones. 

NE  of  the  clubs  has  lately  deviated  from 
the  printing  of  letterpress,  which  is  the 
established  function  of  clubs,  into  picto- 
^-^  :  i;il  art.  As  it  threatens  to  repeat  the 
act  on  a  larger  scale,  it  is  proposed  to  take  a  glance 
at  the  result  already  afforded,  in  order  that  it  may 
be  seen  whether  it  is  a  failure,  or  a  success  opening 
up  a  new  vein  for  club  enterprise.  In  distributing 
a  set  of  pictorial  prints  among  its  members,  the  club 
in  question  may  be  supposed  to  have  invaded  the 
art-unions  ;  but  its  course  is  in  another  direction, 
since  its  pictures  are  entirely  subservient  to  archa> 
ology.  The  innovator  in  question  is  the  Spalding 
Club,  which  has  already  distributed  among  its  ad 
herents  a  collection  of  portraits  of  the  sculptured 
stones  in  Scotland,  and  now  proposes  to  do  the 
same  by  the  early  architectural  remains  of  the 


SERMONS  IN  STONES.  395 

North.  In  giving  effect  to  such  a  design,  it  will 
produce  something  like  Dugdale's  Monasticon  and 
the  great  English  county  histories. 

If  that  which  is  to  be  done  shall  rival  that  which 
the  club  has  achieved,  it  will  be  worthy  of  all  honor. 
No  one  can  open  the  book  of  the  sculptured  stones 
without  being  almost  overwhelmed  with  astonish 
ment  at  the  reflection  that  they  are  not  monuments 
excavated  in  Egypt,  or  Syria,  or  Mexico,  but  have 
stood  before  the  light  of  day  in  village  church-yards, 
or  in  market-places,  or  by  waysides  throughout  our 
own  country.  As  you  pass  on,  the  eye  becomes 
almost  tired  with  the  endless  succession  of  grim  and 
ghastly  human  figures  —  of  distorted  limbs  —  of 
preternatural  beasts,  birds,  and  fishes  —  of  drag 
ons,  centaurs,  and  intertwined  snakes  —  of  uncouth 
vehicles,  and  warlike  instruments,  and  mystic-look 
ing  symbols  —  of  chains  of  interlaced  knots  and 
complex  zigzags,  all  so  crowding  on  each  other  that 
the  tired  eye  feels  as  if  it  had  run  through  a  pro 
cession  of  temptations  of  St.  Anthony  or  Faust 
Sabbaths.  When  this  field  of  investigation  and 
speculation  is  surveyed  in  all  its  affluence,  one  is 
not  surprised  to  find  that  it  has  been  taken  in  hand 
by  a  race  of  bold  guessers,  who,  by  the  skilful  ap 
pliance  of  a  jingling  jargon  of  Asiatic,  Celtic,  and 
classical  phraseology,  make  nonsense  sound  like 
learning  too  deep  to  be  fathomed.  So,  while  Rusti- 
cus  will  point  out  to  you  "the  auld-fashioned  stand- 
in'  stane  "  —  on  which  he  tells  you  that  there  are 
plain  to  be  seen  a  cocked  hat,  a  pair  of  spectacles,  a 


396  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

comb,  a  looking-glass,  a  sow  with  a  long  snout,  and 
a  man  driving  a  gig,  —  Mr.  Urban  will  describe  to 
you  "a  hieroglyphed  monolith"  in  the  terms  follow 
ing  :  — 

44  The  Buddhist  triad  is  conspicuously  symbolized 
by  what  the  peasantry  call  a  pair  of  spectacles.  It 
consists  of  two  circles,  of  which  the  one,  having  its 
radius  II  inch  wider  than  the  other,  is  evidently 
Buddha,  the  spiritual  or  divine  intellectual  essence 
of  the  world,  or  the  efficient  underived  source  of 
all ;  the  other  is  Dharma,  the  material  essence  of 
the  world  —  the  plastic  derivative  cause.  The  liga- 
men  connecting  them  together  completes  the  sacred 
triad,  with  the  Sangha  derived  from  and  composed 
of  the  two  others.  Here,  therefore,  is  symbolized 
the  collective  energy  of  spirit  and  matter  in  the 
state  of  action,  or  the  embryotic  creation,  the  type 
and  sum  of  all  specific  forms,  spontaneously  evolved 
from  the  union  of  Buddha  and  Dharma.  The  cres 
cent,  likened  by  the  vulgar-minded  peasantry  to  a 
cocked  hat,  is  the  embodiment  of  the  all-pervading 
celestial  influence  ;  and  the  decorated  sceptres  or 
sacred  wands  of  office,  laid  across  it  at  the  mystic 
angle  of  forty-five  degrees,  represent  the  compre 
hensive  discipline  and  cosmopolite  authority  of  the 
conquering  Sarsaswete.  The  figure  of  the  elephant 
—  undoubted  evidence  of  the  Oriental  origin  of  this 
monoglyph  —  represents  the  embryo  of  organized 
matter ;  while  in  the  chariot  of  the  sun  the  never- 
dying  Inis  na  Blifiodhlhadth  threads  the  sacred  lab 
yrinth,  waving  a  branch  of  the  Mimosa  serisha, 


SERMONS  IN  STONES.  397 

which  has  been  dipped  in  a  sacred  river,  and  dried 
beneath  the  influence  of  Osiris.  The  figures  called 
a  comb  and  a  looking-glass  are  the  lingal  emblems 
of  the  sacred  Phallic  worship.  The  whole  hier- 
Ograph  thus  combines,  in  an  extremely  simple  and 
instructive  unity,  the  symbolization  of  Apis,  Osiris, 
Uphon,  and  Isis,  Phallos,  Pater  JEther,  and  Mater 
Terra,  Lingam  and  Yoni,  Vishnu,  Brama,  and  Sar- 
saswete,  with  their  Saktes,  Yang  and  Yiri,  Padwa- 
devi,  Viltzli  Pultzli,  Baal,  Dhanandarah,  Sulivahna 
and  Mumbo  Jumbo." 

The  honest  transcripts  in  the  club  book  clear 
away  a  great  deal  of  that  unknown  which  is  so 
convertible  into  the  magnificent.  It  was  extremely 
perplexing  to  understand  that  the  elephant  was  pro 
fusely  represented  upon  memorials  familiar  to  the 
eyes  of  the  inhabitants  of  Scotland,  at  a  period,  if 
we  might  credit  some  theories,  anterior  to  the  time 
when  Roman  soldiers  were  appalled  in  the  Punic 
war  by  the  sudden  apparition  of  unknown  animals 
of  monstrous  size  and  preternatural  strength.  The 
whole  flood  of  Oriental  theory  was  let  loose  by  this 
evidence  of  familiarity  with  the  usages  of  Hindos- 
tan.  But  it  is  pretty  evident,  when  we  inspect 
him  closely,  that  the  animal,  though  a  strange  beast 
of  some  peculiar  conventional  type,  is  no  elephant. 
That  spiral  winding  up  of  his  snout,  which  passed 
for  a  trunk,  is  a  characteristic  refuge  of  embryo 
art,  repeated  upon  other  parts  of  the  animal.  It 
is  necessitated  by  the  difficulty  which  a  primitive 
artist  feels  in  bringing  out  the  form  of  an  extremity, 


398  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

whatever  it  may  be  —  snout,  horn,  or  hoof.  He 
finds  that  the  easiest  termination  he  can  make  is 
a  whirl,  and  he  makes  it  accordingly.  Thus  the 
noses,  the  tails,  the  feet  of  the  characteristic  mon 
ster  of  the  sculptured  stones  all  end  in  a  whirl,  as 
the  final  letter  of  an  accomplished  and  dashing  pen 
man  ends  in  a  flourish.  The  same  difficulty  is  met 
in  repeated  instances  on  these  stones  by  another  in 
genious  resource.  Animals  are  united  or  twined 
together  by  noses  or  tails,  to  enable  the  artist  to 
escape  the  difficulty  of  executing  the  extremities  of 
each  separately. 

There  is  a  propensity  to  believe  that  whatever  is 
old  must  have  something  holy  and  mysterious  about 
it.  It  is  difficult  to  suppose  that,  in  making  an  orna 
ment,  men  who  would  be  so  venerable,  were  they 
alive  now,  as  our  ancestors,  can  have  been  in  the 
slightest  degree  affected  by  the  pomps  and  vanities 
of  this  wicked  world.  Hence  there  is  never  a  quaint 
Gothic  decoration,  floral  or  animal,  but  it  must  be 
symbolic  of  some  great  mystery.  So  the  reticulated 
and  geometrical  tracery  on  the  sculptured  stones 
has  been  invested  with  mythic  attributes,  under 
such  names  as  "the  Runic  Knot."  It  has  been 
counted  symbolical  of  a  mysterious  worship  or 
creed,  and  has  been  associated  with  Druids  and 
other  respectable,  but  not  very  palpable,  person 
ages.1 

1  It  would  not  be  difficult  to  trace  a  resemblance  between 
some  of  the  exceedingly  elaborate  sculpture  of  the  New  Zea- 
landers  and  that  of  the  sculptured  stones,  especially  in  the  in 
stance  of  the  very  handsome  country-house  of  the  chief  Kangi- 


SERMONS  IN  STONES.  399 

Good  theories  are  such  a  rarity  in  the  antiqua 
rian  world,  that  it  is  a  luxury  to  find  one  which, 
in  reference  to  this  sort  of  decoration,  merits  that 
praise.  The  buildings,  both  ecclesiastical  and  civil, 
of  the  early  Christians  of  the  North  were,  as  we 
have  seen,  made  of  wattles  or  wicker- ware.  The 
skill,  therefore,  of  the  architectural  decorator  took 
the  direction  of  the  variations  in  basket-work.  We 
know  that  in  the  Gothic  age  those  forms  which  were 
found  the  most  endurable  and  graceful  in  which 
stone  could  be  placed  upon  stone,  became  also  the 
ruling  forms  which  guided  the  carver  and  the  paint 
er  ;  so  that  all  wood-work,  metal-work,  seal-cutting, 
illumination  of  books,  and  the  like,  repeated  the 
ornaments  of  Gothic  architecture.  It  would  only, 
then,  be  a  prototype  of  an  established  phenomenon 
were  it  to  be  found  that  the  sculptor  of  an  earlier 
age  adopted  the  decorations  developed  by  the  skil 
ful  platting  of  withes  or  wattles  ;  and  accordingly, 
this  is  just  the  character  of  the  platted  ornaments 
so  prevalent  on  the  sculptured  stones.1  But,  how 
ever  these  may  have  been  suggested,  they  show  the 

haetita,  represented  in  Mr.  Angas's  New  Zealanders  Illustrated. 
Its  name,  by  the  way,  in  the  native  Maori,  is  Kai  Tangata,  or 
Eat-man  House  —  so  called,  doubtless,  in  commemoration  of  the 
many  jolly  feasts  held  in  it  on  missionaries,  and  others  coming 
within  Wordsworth's  description  of 

"  A  being  not  too  wise  and  good 

For  human  nature's  daily  food." 

1  See  "An  Attempt  to  Explain  the  Origin  and  Meaning  of 
the  Early  Interlaced  Ornamentation  found  on  the  Ancient 
Sculptured  Stones  of  Scotland,  Ireland,  and  the  Isle  of  Man, 
by  Gilbert  J.  French  of  Bolton."  Privately  printed. 


400  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

work  of  the  undoubted  artist,  and  furnish,  as  the 
advertisements  say,  "a  varied  assortment  of  the 
most  elegant  and  attractive  patterns." 

Every  one  who  in  future  attempts  to  unravel  the 
mystery  of  these  primitive  sculptures  must  not  only 
in  gratitude  but  in  common  justice  pay  homage  to 
the  services  of  Mr.  John  Stuart,  the  secretary  of 
the  Antiquaries'  Society  of  Scotland,  to  whose 
learning  and  zeal  he  owes  the  collective  means  of 
examining  them.  It  will  interest  many  to  know 
that  Mr.  Stuart  has  been  at  work  again,  and  has  a 
second  collection  of  transcripts,  in  some  respects 
even  more  instructive  than  the  first.  These  will 
show,  for  instance,  the  point  of  junction  between 
the  sculptures  of  the  East  and  of  the  West,  which, 
in  their  extreme  special  features,  are  widely  unlike 
each  other. 

In  the  mean  time,  as  the  reader  is  perhaps  tired 
of  all  this  talk  about  books,  and  I  would  fain  part 
with  him  in  good  humor,  I  venture  to  take  him  on 
an  imaginary  ramble  in  the  wilds  of  Argyleshire,  in 
search  of  specimens  of  ancient  native  sculpture,  that 
he  may  have  an  opportunity  of  noticing  how  much 
has  yet  to  be  gleaned  off  this  stony  field.  So  we 
are  off  together,  on  a  fresh  summer  morning,  along 
the  banks  of  the  Crinan  Canal,  until  we  reach  the 
road  which  turns  southward  to  Loch  Swin  and 
Taivalich.  After  ascending  so  far,  we  strike  off'  by 
a  scarcely  discernible  track,  and  climb  upwards 
among  the  curiously  broken  mountains  of  South 
Knapdale.  When  we  are  high  enough  up  we  look 


SERMONS  IN  STONES.  4Q1 

on  the  other  side  of  the  first  ridge,  and  see  the 
brown  heather  dappled  with  tiny  lakes,  looking  like 
molten  silver  dropped  into  their  hollows  ;  while  far 
below,  one  of  the  countless  branches  of  Loch  Swin 
winds  through  a  narrow  inlet,  among  rocks  cush 
ioned  to  the  water's  edge  with  deep  green  foliage. 
We  are  not  to  descend  to  the  region  of  lake  and 
woodland,  betrayed  by  this  glimpse,  but  to  keep  the 
wilder  upland  ;  and  at  last,  in  a  secluded  hollow 
near  the  small  tarn  called  Lochcolissor,  we  reach 
a  deserted  village  —  a  collection  of  roofless  stone 

O 

houses,  looking,  if  one  judged  from  mere  externals, 
as  if  they  might  in  their  day  have  given  shelter  to 
Columba  or  Oran.  In  the  centre  of  this  group  of 
domestic  ruins  is  an  affluent  fountain  of  the  clearest 
water.  Standing  over  it  is  the  object  of  our  search 
—  a  tall,  gray,  deeply-lichened  stone.  At  first  it 
seems  amorphous,  as  geologists  say ;  but  a  closer 
view  discloses  on  the  one  side  a  cross  incised,  on 
the  other  a  network  of  floral  decorations  in  relief. 
To  trace  these  in  their  completeness,  it  would  be 
necessary  to  accomplish  the  not  easy  task  of  remov 
ing  the  coating  of  lichen  ;  and,  by  the  way,  if 
adepts  in  the  cryptogamic  department  of  botany 
shall  succeed  in  finding  a  test  of  the  precise  age  of 
those  lichens,  which  they  believe  they  have  proved 
to  be  the  growth  of  centuries,  a  key  of  the  most 
valuable  kind  will  be  obtained  for  discovering  the 
age  of  stone  monuments.1 

1  Any  one  who  desires  to  see  the  extent  to  which  science  can 
find  employment  in  this  arid-looking  corner  of  organic  life,  may 
26 


402  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

Turn  now  in  another  direction.  At  the  head  of 
Locli  Fyne,  near  Dunderar,  the  grim  tower  of  the 
Macnauglitons  —  which,  from  some  decorations  on 
it,  looks  hugely  like  as  if  it  had  been  built  in  the 
seventeenth  century  with  the  stones  of  an  old 
church  —  we  find  a  tuft  of  trees  with  a  dike  round 
it,  called  Kilmorich.  It  is  a  graveyard  evidently, 
though  it  may  not  have  been  recently  opened  ;  the 
surface  is  uneven,  and  several  rough  stones,  which 
may  have  been  placed  there  at  any  time,  stick 
through  the  earth.  These,  after  a  deliberate  in 
spection,  are  found  to  have  nothing  of  a  sculptural 
character.  But  a  small  piece  of  rounded  stone  ap 
pears  above  the  grass,  and  a  little  grubbing  discloses 
a  font,  faintly  decorated  with  some  primitive  fluting, 
on  which  a  stone-mason  would  look  with  much 
scorn  ;  and  a  scratching  of  a  galley,  the  symbol  of 
the  Argyll  family,  or  some  other  of  the  races  de 
scended  from  ancient  sea-kings.  This  gives  encour 
agement,  and  a  sharper  glance  around  betrays  a 
singular-looking  rounded  headstone,  with  two  cres 
cent-shaped  holes.  There  are  corresponding  holes 
on  the  portion  under  the  sod,  which  thus  completes 
the  rounded  head  of  an  ancient  Scoto-Irish  cross. 
The  next  point  is  to  find  the  shaft  —  it  lies  not  far 
off,  deep  in  the  turf.  And  when  we  take  the  grass 
and  moss  from  its  face,  it  discloses  some  extremely 

look  at  a  "  Memoir  on  the  Spermogones  and  Pycnides  of  Fila 
mentous,  Fruticulose,  and  Foliaceous  Lichens,"  by  Dr.  William 
Lander  Lyndsay,  in  the  22d  volume  of  the  Transactions  of  the 
Royal  Society  of  Edinburgh. 


SERMONS   IN  STONES.  4Q3 

curious  quadrilateral  decorations,  quite  peculiar,  and 
not  in  conformity  with  any  type  of  form  which 
would  enable  its  date  to  be  guessed  at  within  a  cen 
tury  or  two  of  the  reality. 

Passino-  through  the  rich  woods  of  Ardkinolas,  in 

£5  O  O  * 

a  few  miles  we  reach  the  burying-ground,  called  of 
old  Kilmaglas,  but  now  the  well-kept  churchyard, 
in  which  stands  the  modern  church  of  Strachur. 
There  are  many  who  will  remember  the  white 
house  glimmering  through  the  trees,  and  lament 
that  memory  is  now  all  that  it  contains  for  them. 
Here  are  several  fine  specimens  of  sculpture.  Some 
stones,  not  of  the  oldest  type,  have  the  crossed 
sword,  symbolical  alike  of  the  warrior  character  of 
the  dead  and  the  religion  of  peace  in  which  he  rests. 
There  is  one  with  a  figure  in  full  chain-armor ;  and 
others,  again,  of  an  older  date,  ornamented  with  the 
geometric  reticulations  already  discussed.  Descend 
ing  a  few  miles  farther,  in  the  small  fertile  delta  of 
the  Lachlan,  and  overshadowed  almost  by  the  old 
square  castle  of  the  M'Lachlans,  there  is  a  bushy 
inclosure  which  may  be  identified  as  the  old  burial- 
place  of  Kilmory.  A  large  block  of  hewn  stone, 
with  a  square  hole  in  it,  sets  one  in  search  of  the 
cross  of  which  it  was  the  socket.  This  is  found  in 
the  grass,  sadly  mutilated,  but  can  be  recognized  by 
the  stumps  of  the  branches  which  once  exfoliated 
into  its  circular  head.  Beside  it  lies  a  flat  stone, 
on  which  a  sword  is  surrounded  by  graceful  floral 
sculpture. 

Let  us  cross  over  again  to  the  valley  perforated 


404  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

by  Loch  Crinan.  Northward  of  the  canal  there 
is  a  remarkable  alluvial  district,  through  which, 
although  it  seems  crowded  with  steep  mountain 
summits,  we  can  travel  over  many  a  mile  of  flat 
turf.  From  this  soil  the  hills  and  rocks  rise  with 
extreme  abruptness,  in  ridges  at  the  border  of  the 
plain,  and  in  isolated  peaks  here  and  there  through 
out  its  flat  alluvial  surface.  Conspicuous,  in  a  mi 
nor  degree,  is  a  great  barrow  like  a  pyramid,  with 
a  chamber  roofed  with  long  stones  in  its  centre. 
Near  it  is  one  of  those  circles  of  rough  stones  called 
Druidical,  and  farther  on  there  is  another,  and  then 
another ;  some  of  them  tall  pillars,  others  merely 
peeping  above  ground.  They  literally  people  the 
plain.  This  must  have  been  a  busy  neighborhood, 
whatever  sort  of  work  it  may  have  been  that  went 
on  around  these  untooled  fragments  of  the  living 
rock,  which  have  so  distracted  our  antiquaries  in 
later  centuries.  If  they  were  the  means  or  the 
object  of  any  kind  of  heathen  worship,  then  the 
existence  close  beside  them  of  the  vestiges  of  early 
Christianity  may  be  set  down  as  an  illustration  of 
the  well-known  historical  opinion,  that  the  first 
Christian  missionaries,  instead  of  breaking  the  idols 
and  reviling  the  superstitions  of  those  whom  they 
went  to  convert,  professed  to  bring  a  new  sanctity 
to  their  sacred  places,  and  endeavored  to  turn  their 
impure  faith,  with  the  least  possible  violence,  into 
the  path  of  purity. 

Our  next  trial  is  at  Kilmichael,  about  three  miles 
from   Loch  Gilp.      The  churchyard  is  extremely 


SERMONS  IN  STONES.  4Q5 

fruitful  in  sculptured  stones  of  various  kinds  — 
some  floral,  others  geometrical,  with  wild  beasts, 
monsters,  and  human  figures.  One  of  them  was 
pointed  out  as  the  tomb  of  a  member  of  the  house 
of  Campbell,  who  bore  the  name  of  Thomas,  and 
was  a  great  bard,  and  lived  in  London  and  other 
great  cities  —  Thomas  Campbell,  in  short.  It  seems 
to  be  true  that  his  fathers  were  buried  in  Kilmichael 
churchyard,  but  my  informant  seemed  to  struggle 
with  an  idea  that  the  stone  covered  with  the  sculp 
ture  of  a  far  past  century  had  been  really  raised 
to  his  honor.  The  next  generation  will  probably 
assert  this  as  a  fact.  The  genesis  of  such  tradi 
tions  is  curious.  The  stone  called  Rob  Roy's 
tomb,  which  lies  beside  an  ancient  font  in  the 
churchyard  of  Balquhidder,  is  a  sculptured  stone 
raised  for  some  one  who  had  probably  died  in 
wealth  and  honor  hundreds  of  years  before  Rob 
stole  cattle. 

By  a  slight  ascent  westward  of  the  alluvial  plain 
we  reach  Kilmartin,  a  village  with  a  large  modern 
church.  Its  graveyard  is  graced  with  many  sculp 
tured  stones  —  twenty -five  may  be  counted,  con 
spicuous  for  their  rich  carving  and  excellent  pres 
ervation.  On  one  or  two  of  the  latest  in  date, 
there  are  knightly  figures  clad  in  chain-mail.  A 
local  antiquary  could  probably  trace  these  home  to 
some  worshipful  families  in  the  neighborhood,  but 
there  are  others  beyond  the  infancy  of  the  oldest 
authentic  pedigrees.  While  the  stones  in  the  east 
ern  counties  are  all  of  extremely  remote  antiquity, 


406  BOOK-CLUB  LITERATURE. 

offering  no  link  of  connection  with  later  times,  these 
Highland  specimens  seem  to  carry  their  peculiarities 
with  modified  variations  through  several  centuries 
into  times  comparatively  late.  There  are  among 
them  stones  bearing  some  types  of  extreme  antiqui 
ty,  and  others  which  undoubtedly  proclaim  them 
selves  as  no  older  than  the  fifteenth  or  sixteenth 
centuries.  It  is  sometimes  a  difficult  task,  in  judg 
ing  of  antiquities,  to  make  a  sufficient  allowance  for 
the  spirit  of  imitation.  There  is  nothing  certainly 
more  natural  than  that  a  new  tombstone  should  be 
made  after  the  fashion  of  time-honored  monuments, 
the  pride  of  the  graveyard  in  which  it  is  to  be 
placed.  In  Kilmartin  there  are  two  decided  imi 
tations  of  the  more  ancient  class  of  the  western 
sculptured  stones.  Though  the  symbols  and  dec 
orations  which  they  bear  are  of  ancient  outline,  the 
heavy,  and  at  the  same  time  accurate  and  work 
manlike,  way  in  which  they  are  cut,  would  mark 
them  indubitably  as  modern,  even  if  the  one  did 
not  bear  the  date  of  1707,  and  the  other  of  1711. 

But  the  sun  is  dropping  behind  Ben  Cruachan 
and  the  Jura  hills.  The  time  of  holiday  reading 
and  holiday  rambling  has  come  to  its  end ;  and  a 
voice  calls  the  wanderer  back  to  more  sedate  and 
methodical  pursuits. 


INDEX. 


Aberdeen  laird's  wife,  story  of,  8,  9. 

Accession,  right  of,  40. 

ADAMS,  Dr.  Francis,  publication 
of  his  translation  of  the  works 
of  Paul  of  ^Egina,  260. 

Advertisements,  157-160;  speci 
mens  of,  161. 

"  A- fishing,"  criticism  on  the  use 
of  this  idiom,  386,  note. 

Ambrosian  Library,  beginning  of, 
208. 

American  History,  works  on,  print 
ed  and  distributed  as  gift?,  302, 
note  ;  a  special  department  of 
the  book-trade,  303. 

Americans,  their  abuse  of  "  nig 
gers,"  330,  and  note. 

ANGELO  MAI,  discovery  of  lost  In 
stitute  of  Gaius,  317. 

Anglo-Saxon  race,  origin  of  the 
name,  117,  note. 

Annotating  books,  practice  of,  193, 
194. 

Armagh,  description  of  the  cover 
of  the  book  of,  380. 

ATTICUS,  a  publisher,  103,  note. 

Auctioneers,  56-60. 

Auction  rooms,  56-60,  82. 

Aucliinlec/c  Press,  issues  of,  284, 
286. 

Bailiff,  story  of,  who  had  been 
compelled  to  swallow  a  writ, 
140,  note. 

BAILLET,  Adrien,  237. 

BEST,  Mr.  Justice,  story  of  a  refer 
ence  to,  in  an  index,"  137. 

BETHUNE,  Rev.  Dr.,  his  Waltonian 
library,  80. 

Bible,  errors  of  the  press  in  edi 
tions  of,  64  ;  story  of  the  Ger 


man  printer's  wife,  64  ;  Vala- 
rian  Flavigny's  controversy  for 
a  dropped  letter  in  the  rebuke 
respecting  the  mote  in  thy  broth 
er's  eye,  64;  generally  printed 
with  more  than  average  care, 
69. 

Bibliognoste,  defined,  4,  note. 

Biblioyraphe,  defined,  4,  note. 

Bibliomane,  defined,  4,  note. 

Bibliophile,  defined,  4,  note. 

Bibliotheque  bleue,  story  connected 
with,  45,  46. 

Bodleian  Library,  beginning  of, 
209. 

BOHUN,  Edmond,  the  licenser,  217. 

BOLLANDUS,  349. 

Books,  entire  fac-similes  made  of 
old,  24;  one  perfect  made  from 
several  imperfect,  24,  25  ;  ex 
penditure  of  money  in,  96-103; 
curious  and  amusing  from  their 
excessive  badness,  154:  number 
published  annually,  204,  note; 
not  good  fuel,  219;  story  of  a 
house  on  fire  saved  by  the  folio 
Corpus  Juris  and  the  Statutes 
at  Large,  220;  libraries  at  Alex 
andria,  220;  decay  of,  from  nat 
ural  causes,  221 ;  the  fathers  and 
schoolmen,  221  ;  the  civilians 
and  canonists  of  Leyden  and 
Amsterdam,  221;  authors  of  the 
present  day,  222. 

Book-binders,  eminent,  25  ;  man 
ner  of  stamping  their  names,  25. 

Book-binding,  ancient  costly  style, 
27. 

Book-caterer,  (the,)  27-29. 

Book  clubs,  structure  of,  247-261; 
restricted  to  the  promulgation 


408 


INDEX. 


of  works  of  dead  authors,  253; 
the  Cainden,  304;  the  Chethnm, 
304;  the  Surtees,  305;  the  Mait- 
land,  305  ;  the  Spalding,  305  ; 
the  Irish  Archaeological,  305  ; 
the  ^Elfric,  305  ;  the  Shakespeare, 
305;  the  Percy,  305;  the  Hak- 
luyt,  305;  the  Rae  Society,  306; 
the  Parker  Society,  306;  "The 
Library  of  Anglo-Catholic  The 
ology,"  306;  obligations  of  Brit 
ish  history  to,  319. 

Book  Hunter,  (the,)  selection  of 
title  of,  1,  4. 

BOSWELL,  Sir  Alexander,  284;  his 
Auchinleck  Press,  285,  286  ;  his 
songs,  287;  "  Skeldon  Haughs, 
or  the  Sow  is  Flitted,"  288. 

BUYLK,  Sir  Roche,  saying  attrib 
uted  to,  of  being  la  two  places 
at  once  "  like  a  bird,"  137,  note, 
148,  note. 

BREWER,  Inchrule,  22. 

BKINDLKY,  anecdote  of,  171. 

British  Museum,  beginning  of,  208. 

BROWNE,  Sir  Thomas,  passages 
selected  from,  "  The  A^thetics 
of  Toleration,"  128;  "Disputa 
tion,"  130;  "The  Harmony  of 
Nature,"  131;  "The  Justifica 
tion  of  Martyrdom,"  133;  "  Ash 
es  of  the  Unknown  Dead,"  134. 

Bull,  definition  of,  147. 

BURTON,  description  of  his  library 
and  library  building,  190. 

BUTLER,  General,  his  orders  and 
official  correspondence,  107,  note. 


Brunei's    description   of 

copy  of  the  1635  Elzevir  in  the 

Imperial   Library  at  Paris,  23, 

note;  this  edition  known  by  a 

misprint,  63. 
"  Canaian  vessel  "  misprinted  "  Ca 

nadian  vessel,"  71,  72. 
CARFRAE,  anecdote  of,  68. 
Church  Architecture,  early  Brit 

ish,  313. 
CLEMENT,  David,  his  rules  as  to 

the  rarity  of  a  book,  231. 
COMIJE    on    the    Constitution    of 

Man,  anecdote  of  this  book,  207, 

note. 

Compositors,  67-69. 
"  Consummate"   criticism  on   the 

use  of  the  word,  106,  note. 


Copyright  Act  at  Stationers'  Hall, 

203. 
Courtesy  among  men  of  letters  in 

the  use  of  books,  49,  note;  54, 

note. 
Criminal  Trials,  149  ;  illustrated, 

151. 
CUNNINGHAM'S  Latin  History  of 

Britain,  extract  from,  65,  note. 

"  Dame  aux  Camclias"  extract 
from,  8,  note. 

DIBDIN,  passage  from  his  Biblio 
mania,  16  ;  burning  the  wood 
cuts  of  the  Bibfioyrnphical  De 
cameron,  61  ;  character  of  his 
books.  83, and  note;  his  account 
of  the  dinner-party  at  the  table 
of  "  Hortensius,"  262,  263;  mer 
its  of  his  "  Literary  Compan 
ion,"  276,  277,  note." 

Dibdinism,  defined,  276. 

Ecclesiokgist  (the),  313. 

Eilitio  princeps,  169,  170. 

Editors  of  club-books,  300,  301, 
308,  315;  of  "  De  Antiquis  Legi- 
bus  Liber,"  308. 

EDWARDS,  Edward,  his  memoirs 
of  libraries,  187,  note. 

Elzevir  classics,  57;  have  dimin 
ished  in  value,  57,  note. 

ERASMUS,  error  of  the  press  in  his 
"  Vidua  Christiana,"  64,  note. 

TERRIER'S  "  Bibliomania,"  ex 
tract  from,  79,  note. 

"Fiat  justitia  —  ruat  coelum,"  162, 
note. 

FISHER,  Rev.  John,  Bishop  of 
Rochester,  his  attempt  to  found 
a  university  library,  214. 

Flower- Fanciers.  See  Tulip-Col 
lectors. 

French  Causes  Ce"Iebres,  150. 

French  novel,  anecdote  in,  9,  note. 

Gaius,  Institute  of,  discovery  of 
lost,  by  Angelo  Mai,  317. 

"Game  o'f  Chess,"  (the,;  1474,  first 
book  printed  in  England,  pur 
chase  and  sale  of,  229,  230. 

Genealogist,  (the,)  310-313. 

Genealoyy,  story  of  a  witness  called 
to  prove  a  point  of,  310,  note. 

General  History  of  Ireland,  (the,) 


INDEX. 


409 


by  Jeffrey  Keating,  355  ;  ex 
tracts  from,  355-360. 

Gordonstvun  library,  91. 

Granyerite,  (the,)  74;  the  way  de 
scribed  in  which  he  would  pro 
ceed  to  illustrate  a  verse,  76. 

Greek  nomenclature,  1-4. 

Hagiology,  writers  on,  349. 

Harvard  Library,  burning  of,  198. 

HAZLEWOOD,  Joseph,  267  ;  his 
classification  of  his  books,  268; 
his  history  of  the  Koxburghe 
Club,  269-272;  specimen  of  his 
style,  272,  note;  description  of 
his  copy  of  "  Ancient  and  Criti 
cal  Essays  upon  English  Poets 
and  Poesy,"  269,  notes. 

Heber's  Library,  origin  of,  93 ;  ex 
tent  of,  94,  95. 

House  and  window  duties,  effect 
of  on  the  dispersal  or  destruc 
tion  of  books,  202. 

HUME,  Alexander,  specimens  from 
his  Hymns  or  Sacred  Songs,  318, 
note. 

Imperial  Library  of  Paris,  foun 
dation  of,  215. 

"  Inaugurate,"  criticism  on  the  use 
of  the  word,  106,  note. 

Institutes,  extract  from,  as  to  prop 
erty  acquired  by  the  right  of 
accession,  40,  note. 

Irish  Vampire,  (the,)  account  of, 
52-55. 

Irish  Archasological  book-club, 
305. 

Irish  bulls,  136,  158. 

JOLLY,  Bishop  Robert,  241. 
Jolly  Club,  (the,)  241,  243. 
JONES,  Sir  William,  his  reading 

Cicero,  108. 
JUNOT,  his  vellum    library,   61  ; 

sale  of  his  copy  of  the  Didot 

Horace,  of  1799,  62. 

Kane  and  Carriages,  story  of,  144, 

note. 
KEESE,  John,  tribute  to,  58,  note; 

stories  of,  58,  59,  note. 
KENT,  Judge,  his  library,  192. 

LAMB,  Charles,  his  Index  Expur- 
gatorius,  153,  note. 


Larceny  by  book  collectors,  46; 
description  of,  by  Scott.  47,  48. 

" Large  paper"  copies,  difference 
between,  and  "  tall "  copies,  78, 
79;  caution  against  gathering, 
80,  note. 

Latin  Law  Maxims,  specimens  of 
translations  of,  142,  note. 

Laurentian  Library,  209. 

Law  Books  and  Keports,  137. 

"  Lay  Gents,"  140  and  note. 

Legal  technicalities,  140. 

Library  of  Anglo-Catholic  Theol 
ogy,  (the,)  306. 

"  Libri  comesti,"  217,  note. 

Literary  forgeries,  296. 

Literary  future  of  the  New  World, 
199. 

Long  Parliament,  notes  of  the  pro 
ceedings  of,  by  Sir  Ralph  Ver- 
ney,  322. 

Lowndes'  Bibliographer's  Manual, 
Bonn's  edition,  mistake  in,  as 
regards  The  Federalist,  74,  note. 

Lycanthropy,  276. 

Macaronics,  specimen  of,  290,  291. 
Magliabecchi,  stories  of,  236  ;  his 

origin,  237. 
MAGOON,   Rev.    Dr.,  his  library, 

195. 

MAGNUS  Lucullus,  42-45. 
MEADOWBANK,  Archdeacon,  12- 

17,  25. 
"  Men  of  the  Time,"  (the,)  a  book 

full  of  blunders,  74,  note. 
MENZIES,  his  library,  197,  note. 
Monarchies  of  Europe,  State  and 

and  Political  Etiquette  of,  85, 

note. 

"  Morning  Chronicle,"  London,  er 
ror  of  the  press  in,  64,  note. 

"  Naming  a  member,"  story  of  Mr. 

Onslow,  135. 
NOT,  Attorney-General,  126, 127. 

OELRICHS,  John  Charles  Conrad, 
his  Dissertation  concerning  the 
Fates  of  Libraries  and  Books, 
217. 

OXFORD,  Bishop  of,  odd  accident 
happening  by  the  dropping  of  a 
line  or  two  out  of  "  the  forme," 
in  the  Life  of  "  The  Men  of  the 
Time,"  73. 


410 


INDEX. 


PArAVEKius,Thomas,  29-42.  And 
see  Prefatory  Note  to  this  edi 
tion. 

Printer's  blunders,  their  use  in 
detecting  plagiarisms,  70,  note. 

Poetry,  sometimes  improved  by 
errors  of  the  press,  70. 

Printing  Presses,  priviite,  285. 

Private  Libraries  of  New  York 
(The),  by  Dr.  Wynne,  181;  sin 
gular  social  condition  revealed 
by  the  publication  of,  182,  and 
note. 

PRYKSE'S  "  Histrio  Mastyx,"  126. 

Quaker  collector  of  paintings, 
story  of,  98. 

Religions  and  political  intolerance, 
an  enemy  to  literature,  217. 

Reprints,  206,  207. 

RUBKKT  of  Bury,  Bishop  of  Dur 
ham,  209  ;  extracts  from  his 
"Philobiblion,"  210,  212,  note; 
his  visit  to  Paris,  211 ;  his  policy 
of  bringing  around  him  members 
of  the  mendicant  orders, 212;  his 
injunctions  as  to  the  proper 
treatment  of  manuscripts  and 
books,  227,  note. 

ROBXBTflOJC,  Joseph,  301. 

ROGERS'  '•  Italy  "  with  Turner's, 
etc.,  Illustrations,  error  which 
affords  assistance  in  the  selection 
of  a  copy,  63,  note. 

"Rout  upon  Rout,  or  the  Babblers 
Rabbled,"  refusal  of  owner  to 
lend  a  copy  of,  53,  54. 

Roxburyhe  Club,  origin  of,  262- 
264  ;  founded  on  the  principle 
that  e:tch  member  should  print 
a  volume,  302 ;  first  publications 
of,  274,  275 ;  Havelok  the  Dane, 
275;  William  and  the  Wer  Wolf, 
276;  the  principle  of  sustaining 
the  value  of  a  book  by  limiting 
the  impression,  278. 

Roxburyhe,  Duke  of,  origin  of  his 
bibliomania,  84,  87. 

Roxburyhe  library,  sale  of,  84,  87- 
89;  the  Venetian  Boccaccio,  89. 

Roxburyhe  toasts,  Hazlewood's  list, 
264,  note. 

Rubricists,  62. 

Saints,  the  Early  Northern,  346. 


School-books,  ancient,  value  of, 
224. 

Scotch  and  English  law,  variations 
between,  142. 

SCOTT,  Sir  Walter,  an  inaccurate 
writer,  83,  note;  his  picture  of 
himself  at  the  time  of  the  Rox- 
burghe  sale,  165;  letter  to  Rob 
ert  Pitcairn,  respecting  the  es 
tablishing  of  a  book-club,  281; 
song  to  the  Bannatyners,  281, 
282;  prints  the  trial  of  two  High 
landers  for  murder,  for  the  club, 
282. 

Self -denunciations,  5. 

Seneca,  extract  from  "  De  Tran- 
quillitate,"  115,  note. 

Sermons  in  Stones,  394. 

SHAKESPEARE,  error  in  citation 
from  corrected,  47,  note ;  amend 
ed  readings  of,  67,  68,  note;  de 
scription  of  an  illustrated  folio 
copy  of,  187,  note;  a  member  of 
the 'Mermaid,  246. 

Shakespearian  criticism,  66. 

SMAKT,  Fitzpatrick,  17-22,  28. 

Society  of  Friends,  effect  on  the 
passions  of  restraint  exercised 
by,  7,  note. 

Societies,  nomenclature  of,  244. 

Spaldiny  Club,  305;  distributed  a 
collection  of  portraits  of  the 
sculptured  stones  in  Scotland, 
394. 

SPALDING,  John,  323;  his  "Me 
morials  of  the  Troubles  in  Scot 
land  and  England,  323. 

SnorOXB,  Earl,  purchase  of  the 
Caxtons  at  the  Roxburghe  sale 
by,  121. 

Spirit  of  Despotism,  by  Vicesi- 
mus  Knox,  anecdote*  of,  207, 
note. 

Spottisicoode  Societv,  origin  of. 
243. 

"  Star  Papers,"  passage  quoted 
from,  165. 

State  Trials,  (the,)  149. 

Statutes,  funny  things  in,  144-149. 

"  Step,1"  a  rhyme  to,  292,  note. 

Student  life,  anecdote  of,  120, 
note. 

"  Superinduce,"  criticism  on  the 
use  of  the  word,  106,  note. 

SUKTEES,  Robert,  anecdotes  of 
2S9-2U3 ;  imposition  on  Sir  Wai- 


INDEX. 


411 


ter  Scott  of  a  spurious  ballad, 
293-298. 

"Thanntopsis"  absurdity  concern 
ing  in  "  The  Men  of  the  Time," 
74,  note. 

THOMSON,  anecdote  of  in  presen 
tation  copy  of  "Winter"  to  his 
uncle,  26. 

THOMSON,  Rev.  William,  anecdote 
of,  65,  note. 

THOMSON,  Thomas,  301. 

"  Tonys"  pronunciation  of  the 
word,  340,  note. 

Trial  of  two  Highlanders  for  mur 
der,  282,  283. 

Tulip-collectors,  purchasing  a  du 
plicate  tuber  for  the  purpose  of 
destroying  it,  50,  51. 

Tusculan  Questions,  criticism  on, 
108,  note. 

Title-pa  f/es,  often  deceptive,  122; 
anecdote  of  a  farmer  purchasing 
at  auction  a  copy  of  MacEwen 


on  the  Types,  123;  Aristotle's 
Metaphysics,  124;  specimen  of 
a  lengthy  title-page,  125,  note. 

"  Uncut,"  meaning  of,  79,  note. 

Valarian  Flavigny.     See  Bible. 
Venetian    Boccaccio.      See    Rox- 
burghe  Library. 

Wars  and  revolutions,  effect  of 
on  libraries,  218  ;  the  French 
libraries  in  the  time  of  Robe 
spierre,  219. 

Waltonians,  (the,)  81,  note. 

Wife  of  a  book-lover,  story  of,  95, 
note. 

WILSOX,  Davie,  169. 

WODKOW,  Robert,  331;  his  "  An- 
alecta,"  334  ;  story  told  by  his 
wife,  336,  377. 

"F,"  use  of,  for  "th,"  265,  note, 
266,  note. 


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